>So although both digital negatives and silver negative uses opaque materials,
>silver negative is able to give "continuous" tone light intensity, whereas
>digital negative cannot. Because dichromated colloid is hardened
>proportionally to the amount of light it received, the "continous-tone"
>negatives can give you the relief in carbon print whereas silver negative
>cannot. (Well, to be more accurate, it can, but the relief height is the same
>in highlights and in shadows, but highlight has more dots but shadows have
>less dots).
This discussion makes me wish I were in a position to rush to the lab, roll
up my sleeves and try the modern "digital" negatives. I just don't have the
time now but in a few months...
In the meantime, for the record: I have made tons of single transfer
monochrome prints and I would say that 99% don't show any relief at all...
I found that the relief depends a lot of the type of pigmented emulsion one
uses, the sensitizer, etc. What worked well for me in monochrome produced
no relief...
With the double transfer tricolor carbon the results are very different and
the relief could be "read" by someone trained to read braille.
If you are using a half-tone screen and if your pigmented emulsion is very
thin carbon *transfer* should not be necessary.
Luis Nadeau
NADEAUL@NBNET.NB.CA
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
http://www3.nbnet.nb.ca/nadeaul/