Enlarged negatives with ortho film

[interneg]

I see, that's what I was afraid of. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Going outside what the film was designed for and the consequential decrease in image quality are precisely what I want to avoid.

At this point it looks like my best options are:
1. Deal with pan film in the dark
2. Bite the bullet cost-wise for Ilford Ortho
3. Experiment with x-ray for cost reduction.

Should add that Litho film can have uses when you need masks etc - again things you might need down the line depending on what your process is. You might also want to consider reversal processing the lith material for one-step negative making http://www.moersch-photochemie.de/fi...evelopment.pdf

What Bob was meaning by a 'flat' positive was meant in terms of contrast - exposure & process time control along with masking may be needed depending on choices of materials.

ND filters will be a very good idea

[bob carnie]

I have done a fair amount of work like this, but should warn you that nowadays I do it all with a Durst Lambda and Photoshop, but in the past, I did a lot
of Positive from neg then back to negative. We are making up to 30 inch by 40 inch silver negatives for Contact Process with our newish setup.

Just like in the digital world the more information you can get the better , as well the sharper the better as you will be going through two steps the old way I am describing.

We always made Contact dupe, no matter if it was 35mm, 2 1/4 , or 4x5 original and we would always try to keep as much information at both ends therefore creating a Flat Pos. Contact dupes are by far
more sharper than enlarged dupes, some may argue, all you need to do is a few and you can easily see the difference.

Now someone here mentioned a service where you go direct to neg- we did this with Ed Burtynsky's Scala machine with great success and in the States it would be worth asking DR5 about a direct negative from negative using his service. {It should be noted but not proven, that Scala film was actually Agfa 100 neg film.} This would allow you to go direct from enlarger to finished film.

Once we had the flat positive, or nowadays a flat file we would expand the contrast with the FP4 film via exposure and dev time and agitation, Today in Photoshop we just start adjusting the curve.

for complete control rather than sending out to DR5 ( which btw I completely endorse his service) some of us are control freaks, I would start with Ilford Ortho make a flat dupe via Contact, and then purchase Ilford FP4 and play with exposure dev to get contrast , and yes use ND so you can Dodge and Burn the enlarged neg easily... We used a Welders hood and gloves and dodged and burn under the Nuars, pretty dumb when you think of it.
This is not as hard as one would think and will allow complete control for many end process.

[EdWorkman]

Get X Ray dupe film for a one step process. Kinda like the late Kodak dupe film only very slow for projection.
As in minutes with a typical enlarger cold light.
Control contrast with choice of developer- increase contrast with paper developer, decrease with film developer.
I have also tried preflashing ,but in a terrible unsophisticated way using the overhead light and cutting test strips from the flashed piece.
On another note for the two step process
I have duped 8x10 negs that had stains.
I made a positive with panchromatic film which saw right thru the yellow, the contacted that onto ortho for simple processing under the safelight

[pdh]

Just like in the digital world the more information you can get the better , as well the sharper the better as you will be going through two steps the old way I am describing.

We always made Contact dupe, no matter if it was 35mm, 2 1/4 , or 4x5 original and we would always try to keep as much information at both ends therefore creating a Flat Pos.

Of course!
That's what I need to try next.
(I'm a bit slow on the uptake sometimes...)

Thanks

[blindpig]

This really takes me back(probably about the same time Bob was making inter-negatives and positives),definitely before digital.Along with all the technical proficiency required there was DUST!,seems no matter how careful one was a tiny speck appeared(I often thought it was embedded in the emulsion when the film was made LOL!) Extra strenuous house keeping,cotton only clothing,etc,to no avail.Then one day our Kodak rep. allowed that a large amount of dust was human dander and that their technicians always wore head gear.Needless to say a hat became mandatory for all film handling in the dark.Tales from long,long ago....

[bob carnie]

This really takes me back(probably about the same time Bob was making inter-negatives and positives),definitely before digital.Along with all the technical proficiency required there was DUST!,seems no matter how careful one was a tiny speck appeared(I often thought it was embedded in the emulsion when the film was made LOL!) Extra strenuous house keeping,cotton only clothing,etc,to no avail.Then one day our Kodak rep. allowed that a large amount of dust was human dander and that their technicians always wore head gear.Needless to say a hat became mandatory for all film handling in the dark.Tales from long,long ago....

Yes the common hellish enemy of the darkroom interneg tech.. we also raised the humidity to almost unbearable levels to drop. Anything I say anything to get rid of it.