Re: NEGS FOR PT/PD

[Sandy King <sanking@CLEMSON.EDU>]

Bob Kiss wrote:


>
>     If you have a negative with decent shadow detail and open (not blocked)
>highlights that prints well on your favorite silver-gelatin paper, with some
>testing, you should have no problem expanding the density range during the
>interpos-to-enlarged neg process (or, if you are feeling bold, with direct
>copy film) to yield a density range for any alt process you want.  One needs
>to know a bit of sensitometry  but sometimes we, on this list, persist in
flagellating a moribund equine quadruped.


In making an enlarged negative either directly by reversal (as per 
the Lawless method presented in a past edition of Post-Factory 
Photography) or by the interpositive route the most important 
consideration is good shadow detail, i.e. you should start with a 
well-exposed, or even slighly over-exposed negative. You can work 
with a negative that gives blocked highlights on the silver print 
perhaps this most likely indicates over-development for silver 
printing that may be just fine for one of the alternative processes 
that requires a negative with a high DR.  I have personally had more 
success with the Lawless reversal method than with the interpositive 
route. However, the interpostive method offers more control.

BTW, there is an article in the current issue of View Camera Magazine 
on making enlarged negatives with interpositives using the Freestyhle 
APH(S) film. In the article the author writes that Freestyle actually 
sells two stocks of this film, one made in the US and the other in 
Japan. He recommends that you ask for the Japanese stock since it 
contains more silver and is better for making enlarged negatives.

I am still trying to figure out what Bob means by sensitometry and 
"flagellating a moribund equine quadruped". Sensitometry is really 
fairly simple to learn, and very easy to apply once learned. Some 
people avoid sensitometry and point out that one does not need to 
know anything about it to make good prints, which is of course true. 
However, in its place we see a lot of personal systems for exposure 
and development control that appear to me to be a lot more 
complicated than the sensitometry that these people are trying to 
avoid.

Sandy King


--