Re: Base for enlarged negs.

On Mar 13, 2005, at 9:15 PM, Michael Healy wrote:
>

> First of all, you will face the very basic problem of how to get a
> digital negative that
> works for you at all. Don't waste expensive material on this!
> Personally, I have made
> great strides by devoting lowrider brands of overhead projection film
> to the project of
> working out the kinks. Just do that. It's cheap, you won't lose sleep
> over $5-per-sheet
> high-end stuff, and you even can print with it - a GREAT WAY to figure
> out the pros and
> cons of digital negs, and of such other things as how much resolution
> you need or can
> get away with, and how to tweak your printer so it doesn't produce
> banding. A lot will
> depend, anyway, on the process you use. Gum or cyanotype will demand
> very different
> things than, say, platinum. The array of issues you need to work out
> could sometimes
> get to feel quite daunting. It is at your own risk that you waste
> expensive transparency
> film on this learning process.

I am using drafting vellum for my enlarged negative, producing it with
a Walgreen's photo cd, tweaked and enlarged in GIMP 2.2, printed in our
very weak sunlight using Sunprint cyanotype paper. It won't win any
contests, but it works well enough to get me thinking about Van Dyke
prints made with this system, possibly even palladium toning them.

So much for purity in my quest for alternative process images.

Gordon Cooper
Received on Mon Mar 14 14:38:08 2005