[alt-photo] Re: wet-plate collodion

[Kerik]

This is not explicitly true. Collodion negatives only have a long scale if
they are intensified, which was common practice back in the day to match
the long scale of the albumen paper that they were printed on. If you make
a collodion negative and skip intensification, it will print very nicely
on modern silver gelatin papers.

But, it sounds like the OP wants to make ambrotypes in the darkroom under
an enlarger. I've had people do this in workshops and it works quite well.
You need a positive image to enlarge from, of course.

Kerik
www.kerik.com


> Wet-plate collodion ("WP") tends to make negatives with a
> substantially longer density range ("DR") than the exposure scale
> ("ES") of most enlarging-speed printing materials, and IME the
> process does not respond well to "minus" development (the usual
> technique for reducing the contrast of film negatives).  You have
> choices -- for example, you could make printing masks for the
> collodion negatives, but punch presses tend to make a mess out of
> glass plates (<g>) and achieving alignment manually will make you
> want to go make daguerrotypes over an open dish of hot mercury in an
> unventilated tent.  So, my advice would be to focus on solutions
> other than enlarging wet plate negs.
>
> On the other hand, I don't much see the point of making wet-plate
> collodion negatives just to scan them or print them on enlarging
> materials -- there isn't much "look" to WP negs, aside from the long
> DR and blue [only] sensitivity (which can be duplicated with a blue
> filter).  Of course, "just to do it" is a perfectly legitimate
> justification.  However, may I suggest that you also take up Pt,
> albumen, or collodion paper printing while you're at it?  Those are
> the printing media that were in use by the folks who originally made WP
> negs.
>
> Best regards,
>
> etienne