DanPhoto@aol.com
Wed, 20 Jan 1999 12:52:18 -0500 (EST)
Hi Carl,
Guess one way would be to use an inexpensive digital camera (or a video
camera in conjunction with an AV Mac or Video import card). You could
easily tape the big neg to a sheet of diffusion material (Roscoe #111)
and photograph the neg by window light. Of course, if you have a big
light table so much the better. Heck, I can envision a QuickCam sitting
on top of the monitor facing your negative on a window behind it. Simple
and cheap!
The important part would be "backward calibrating." That is, making the
screen image properly represent the image as it will print. You might
first photograph a negative that HAS printed successfully. Then make that
image on screen look like the final alt-process print. This could be done
via an Adjustment Layer Curve. Then you'd apply that same Adjustment
Layer Curve to your new "photographed" negatives. Presto, what you see is
what you "should" get, taking into account all the vagaries of the
medium. Ha!
Some camcorders let you shoot in "negative" mode so you can do a very
crude level of proofing that way for your big negs. Or, you could use the
video "negative" (that would look like a positive in the viewfinder) to
at least import a positive image into Photoshop.
A couple years ago I watched Horace Bristol "proofing" his old medium
format negs with one of those little video scanners. He'd move the
scanner over his neg sheet and examine each postive image on his Mac. It
was fun witnessing an 85 year old master embracing modern technology to
streamline a process when he had so little time left.
There are probably simpler ways, but that's all my brain can come up with
at the moment!
Dan
In your email you stated...
>From: cjweese@wtco.net (Carl Weese)
>Reply-to: cjweese@wtco.net (Weese)
>To: alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca (Alt-photo-process)
>List Mind:
>
>I have a question for everyone regarding the proofing of original film
>by photographers working in alternate processes. Most alt processes are
>either expensive, time-consuming, or both and most photographers don't
>expect every exposure to be a "keeper". So how do you
>inspect/examine--proof--your negatives to decide which ones are worth
>printing in platinum, or gum, or carbon, or whatever?
>
>Proofs in silver present several problems: many alt processes demand
>negatives unsuited to the scale of conventional silver papers, and a
>proof in silver may look so different from the intended final result
>that it isn't really helpful.
>
>I've been making digital proofs of my 8x10 work. They don't look like
>final prints either, but they are sufficient for me to evaluate the
>potential of a negative. There's a snag with my 12x20 negatives though,
>since my little flatbed scanner would require three sections to take in
>the whole negative: it's faster (though much more expensive) to make a
>proof in silver.
>
>So, what do YOU do to proof your negatives intended for alternate
>process final prints?
>
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