Register pins on negative holder and montage

[Chris Jones]

Hello, the negative carriers on the 450 M-D Fujimoto enlarger I use have what look like registration pins with a 4mm diameter.

Working on some still lifes this has given me the idea that I may be able to use two or more negatives to montage onto a single silver gelatin print. First, finding a 4mm punch should be easy enough and I have worked in graphic arts and platemaking so know the basic techniques. The 4x5 negative size is also large enough to handle with ease and the negative carrier slots back into the enlarger in the same place allowing for fairly accurate registration, maybe not close enough for colour separations, though?

Having come this far, photograms may be an extra technique and even making negatives with Gimp or Photoshop. Gimp could also be used for sketching or trying out the montage as well as a guide for the position of extra negs? Printing computer based negs may be limited since I only have a laser printer. (Also, Linux is my only OS.)

I am working with silver gelatin selenium toned prints because I enjoy this and also have in the past enjoyed montage techniques so having fun is a part of the game plan. I am using a 4x5 monorail (Calumet 45N)

Can anyone comment, make suggestions or know of other recent artists working in this area? I know it has been done in advertising and commercial work, BTW, but am happy to hear stories.

Best wishes, Chris Jones.

[Donald Miller]

Hello, the negative carriers on the 450 M-D Fujimoto enlarger I use have what look like registration pins with a 4mm diameter.

Working on some still lifes this has given me the idea that I may be able to use two or more negatives to montage onto a single silver gelatin print. First, finding a 4mm punch should be easy enough and I have worked in graphic arts and platemaking so know the basic techniques. The 4x5 negative size is also large enough to handle with ease and the negative carrier slots back into the enlarger in the same place allowing for fairly accurate registration, maybe not close enough for colour separations, though?

Having come this far, photograms may be an extra technique and even making negatives with Gimp or Photoshop. Gimp could also be used for sketching or trying out the montage as well as a guide for the position of extra negs? Printing computer based negs may be limited since I only have a laser printer. (Also, Linux is my only OS.)

I am working with silver gelatin selenium toned prints because I enjoy this and also have in the past enjoyed montage techniques so having fun is a part of the game plan. I am using a 4x5 monorail (Calumet 45N)

Can anyone comment, make suggestions or know of other recent artists working in this area? I know it has been done in advertising and commercial work, BTW, but am happy to hear stories.

Best wishes, Chris Jones.

Not exactly recent but probably one of the best artists in the use of this technique. However he uses a number of enlargers.

Jerry Uelsmann

Another that is very adept and using only one enlarger and a pin registered easel.

Misha Gordin

I have used pin registration for conventional masking but I sure as heck don't fit into the same catagory as the two foregoing photographers.

[Drew Wiley]

The quality of registration obviously depends upon how precisely the punch and carrier
system match. Normally these had to be made at the same time; but if you know a very good machinist you might be able to duplicate results. Another very important factor is to use only polyester-based film, which is dimensionally stable (acetate base
is not, and will be difficult to register). There are quite a few other tricks. The enlarger
itself has to be extremely solid and well-braced. You need very clean darkroom habits,
or the dust issues on indivdual negatives will obviously compound in the final print, etc.

[Donald Miller]

The quality of registration obviously depends upon how precisely the punch and carrier
system match. Normally these had to be made at the same time; but if you know a very good machinist you might be able to duplicate results. Another very important factor is to use only polyester-based film, which is dimensionally stable (acetate base
is not, and will be difficult to register). There are quite a few other tricks. The enlarger
itself has to be extremely solid and well-braced. You need very clean darkroom habits,
or the dust issues on indivdual negatives will obviously compound in the final print, etc.

Absolutely correct. I designed and had a local machinist fabricate the system I use. I use in on a Saunder 4550 and not only must the film be registered accurately but the negative carrier must also be registered accurately within the enlarger. The ideal system would be one where the top end of the process (neg carrier, film etc) is accurate and stable and also the easel would be registered, accurate and stable. Accuracy needs to be on the order of +/- .005.

[PViapiano]

One of the out-of-print Darkroom books by Lustrum Press (Ralph Gibson's old imprint) has a how-to session with Jerry Uelsmann in it. Plus I recall a Uelsmann book in paperback (still available AFAIK) that takes an image from start to finish...

[Rodney Polden]

I have done a fair amount of work with pin registration over the years. If you are able to find a Kodak Register Punch and a couple of pin-registration bars, you're (almost) in business. There are some punches still floating around out there, and they show up on ebay now and then. If you can find yourself one or more pin bars, then I can help you out with the punch part of the process.

For quite a long time before I found my punch, I worked by using strips of acetate that I punched with a Kodak punch belonging to a copy-studio in my city. I simply taped one pre-punched plastic strip onto the sheet of film or paper that I was working with prior to beginning the process. The advantages are that you can re-use the strips many many times over, and also that you don't lose the area of valuable film/paper that otherwise is unusable for image due to having holes in it. You only lose the use of a very small area of sensitised material where your adhesive tape attaches.

Choice of adhesive tape will depend on whether the registration needs to endure with the sensitised material through a wet/dry cycle, or just while dry; also, the resulting thickness of the sandwich of film/paper/pin-bar/adhesive tape may play a part in that choice.

The Kodak full-size pin-bars will work with a strip of acetate that is over 10" long, so they're great for print material under the enlarger and for larger film formats. For smaller negative sizes and for use in the neg carrier itself, other factors (specific neg carrier design, film format etc) will dictate the arrangements you will need to make this method work.

The Kodak system will provide (maybe I mean "can" provide) a very high degree of accuracy of registration, because it incorporates a design that permits expansion and contraction of the punched material and still keeps registration. Other systems may not give as consistent a result. I have seen people use even a small hand-held office-style punch with round holes and get a fairly good degree of repeatability.

For some purposes, even using an "L" cut from plastic, paper or thin card of the same thickness as your sensitised material can give adequate registration. This "L" is then taped in place onto the neg carrier, the enlarger baseboard or whatever. The accuracy of cut of the film/paper itself is so high that just nestling the piece of film etc into the right-angle of the cut of the "L" can give very good repeatability. The only difficulties with this method revolve around a couple of issues:
operator error - so clip a tiny corner off the sheet before starting and always use a consistent protocol of where that clipped corner sits;
and flatness - so set up systems that allow the sensitised material to be positioned without stress in the "L" corner, and then have the glass lowered gently and evenly onto the neg/film/paper without causing any movement from the correct position.

The back side of waste double-weight prints can be used for creating layout guides for some multiple printing techniques.

Depending on how demanding the results are that you're trying to achieve, one or other of these methods will probably get you started. Reduce the variables as far as possible, get used to the system (before you switch out the lights!) and then the fun begins.

Good luck.