You said
>Has anyone discussed or tried using paper negatives for gum printing.
Yes. They will almost certainly give you a better image than using lith film
developed to continuous tone and, unless the film has fallen off the back of a
lorry or has been taken from a skip, paper negatives will be cheaper.
There are two main approaches.
1. Make the very best print you can with all the dodging and burning in you need
and then contact that onto a clean sheet of paper, emulsion to emulsion, so that
when you expose the gum print under your paper negative you can expose through
the back.
2. Reverse a positive transparency in the negative carrier and expose onto the
paper on the base board. If your original has a wide range of tin you will need
to make separate negatives for the highlights, mid tones and shadow detail.
Exposures will need to be increased by a factor of about three
Many of my best prints were made using method two.
Terry King