Evaluating negatives

[Vaughn]

Don't forget to turn the negatives over the other way when you contact them...

[faberryman]

I don’t know if it matters but my wife swears I’m colorblind, and if thinking the living room was painted cream when it was apearently green counts she may be right!

Always assume your wife is right about paint color selection. This is one area where truth is of little importance.

[Drew Wiley]

Ha! I knew the former director of the International Color Council, but his wife was Peruvian, so the only color he was allowed to use at home was red. Anyway, if it were me, I'd want some distinct sparkle to a backlit diatom print, so would probably choose the neg on the left, and definitely not the thin one in the middle. But what I'd really like to see is a dark-phase version.

[Vaughn]

Always assume your wife is right about paint color selection. This is one area where truth is of little importance.

It is a proven fact that most women see more colors then most men...and that does not even take into consideration those men who are to some degree color-blind. A lady friend of mine will comment about the nice colors still left in the sky, long after I stop seeing anything significant. So the "truth" is important...one's wife is seeing what is really there for her! Accepting something we can not see is tough for us guys...its a religious thing.

Enlarging I'd go for the middle one, contact printing I'd try the left one first. For alt processes, I'd bleach the one on the right, then selenium tone it...silly me!

[Jeffraty]

Unfortunately, I haven't got a paraboloid dark field condenser for that particular stand. I can do a phase contrast if you like?

Anyway thanks to everyone who chimed in with their insights. This is the sort of thing that makes me wish there was someone around the corner who had a few decades of experience I could benefit from. Being so new to both photography in general and chemical photography in particular I find I just haven't got the judgment to let my opinions hold my hand on this. It hadn't occurred to me make a proof for evaluating, I suppose I thought that was reserved for 35mm contact proof sheets. Special thanks as well for the book recommendations, I placed my order with Abe Books yesterday.

I had read about extending the developing time (and using less dilute D76) to raise the contrast but I wonder if a yellow filter wouldn't get a bit more as well? I gather yellow filters are recommended for photography of sky/clouds and with the 3400 degree color temperature supplied by the light source in this case I'd think that same principle would apply?

In any case, thanks again to everyone who let me benefit from their knowledge!

[mdarnton]

Filters alter the balance of colors within a subject. If color isn't a prevalent feature of the subject, as opposed to the lighting, nothing will change.

[Gary Beasley]

It would help to have a location, then you might actually find someone with decades of experience right around the corner!