Inkjet color negs?

[Al Seyle]

Is it possible to make masked color negs (for type C contact printing) with an inkjet printer -- like Dan Burkholder's in b/w?

[ronald moravec]

Don`t know the complete answer, but you can add a sheet of unexposed ,buy processed color neg
above the carrier. This is the route I will pursue when I get time.

[Bruce Watson]

No one else is going to answer. Sigh...

Of course you can do it. It might take more effort than it's worth, however. One would think that creating the digital negative is the easy part. Just get the image the way you want it and reverse it. You can probably then just add a layer to contain the orange contrast mask. The exact color of the orange mask is going to be a problem, however. You can get the color from an actual negative with a spectrophotometer. But to get an exact match, you're going to have to print yours out, dry it off (evaporate the glycols and glycerins - I use a hair dryer), and use the spectrophotometer to see how close you came. You'll have to iterate a few times to get it exactly right.

So yes, it is possible.

[Glenn Kroeger]

Al:

With B&W, the only issue is the total transmissivity of the inks used in making the negative. With color, you are now dealing with the color transmission of the inks. These inks are designed for their reflected color, so their absorption and transmission characteristics could be far less than desirable for matching the response of type-C papers.

[Bruce Watson]

Glenn is correct of course. I was assuming that you were using inks and substrates designed for making display transparancies, like are used at trade shows. Colors should be more or less "true" then.

[Al Seyle]

I am surprized no one has said-

Why would you want or need to do that? After all, if one has the inkjet printer to make a finished-size negative, they can print final prints as well, so what would be the point of the question?

There is just too much time to think of dumb questions in the Winter...