B&W Pencil/Dye Retouching Tutoring?

[mhermann]

Greetings -

I've read every period technique book every which way, every thread on this forum, have both an Adams and Homer English machine, all manners of pointy leads, old-stock Spotone, Ansco coccine on the way, old-stock retouching medium, and some old 8x10 negatives for practice, and...I just can't get it right.

Every degree of lightness-of-touch either gives me no change, or ugly, discernible chicken scratch.

Alas, having spent my life in photojournalism, the nominal "old-timers" in my circles are all newspaper veterans, not studio people. As such, is there anyone who, either through their own experience or second-generation, teaches retouching for portraiture? I am, specifically, going for the aesthetic of common commercial studio work from the '40s and '50s, which was not subtle, but, at least, it was neat. I'm familiar with Katherine Gillis, but her emphasis seems to be on spotting landscape prints for fine-art, not turning the 1944 graduation portrait into a too-perfect enlargement that will live in a frame atop a dresser for the next 78 years.

I haven't cracked open my first pack of 8x10 film yet, having spent most of my LF time in 4x5; and, while I intend to do contact prints from them, eventually, am I missing something obvious in flatbed-scanning on my Epson? Do scanners just not handle retouching strokes the same way that conventional printing does?

In short, if there's anyone-of-a-certain-age-and-experience, in the NYC area, who wants to yell at a vapid millennial that he's doing it wrong and proceed to show him how to do it right, I am an eager student.

Thanks, all!

[Louie Powell]

I suspect that what you are looking for is likely a soon-to-be, if not already lost art.

About 15 years ago, I took a large-format workshop at Peters Valley Craft Center (northwestern NJ, in the Delaware Water Gap Recreational Area) with Chip Forelli. The workshop mainly was landscape work, but Chip did get into retouching techniques, especially dye-dodging. The key point he emphasized was that while it is possible to work on the negative itself (preferably on the back), it is better to create a sandwich involving the original negative, and a second sheet of unexposed but fixed film. The idea is that if you then work on the back of that second sheet of film, there will be two layers of film between the retouching and the image layer on the emulsion face of the original negative, so that when you focus the image on the printing paper, the retouching will be slightly out of focus. As a result, the print shows the effect of the retouching without showing all the detailed work involved. I used this technique in my own darkroom quite a bit until I gave up darkroom work altogether and switched to digital.

The other technique that I sometimes used was printing through a layer of panty hose that I stretched and held using an embroidery ring. The effect of the panty hose was to diffuse small hotspots, and normally I applied diffusion for only a fraction of the total exposure time. But using it longer would help achieve the effect you are trying to create.

I know that Peters Valley had to close their darkroom and has switched their photography classes almost entirely to digital. Chip's website indicates that he has taught recently at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, but again apparently only digital topics. However, you might reach out to him to see if a one-on-one session is possible.

The other big name that I recognize in the field of negative retouching is Lady Ostapeck, but sadly she passed away a few years ago.

[Michael R]

It depends on what kind of retouching you’re trying to do. Things like fixing scratches, dust holes etc. on the negative, vs trying to incorporate some printing controls into the negative. It also depends on whether the goal is to print in a darkroom or scan the negative for digital processing. An important variable is the film type. For example, Kodak TXP is designed for retouching on the base side.

Though not as useful for fixing tiny negative flaws such as dust and scratches, using a second surface and/or multiple additional surfaces above the negative for certain things such as dodging works well. These additional surfaces can be sheets of fixed out film or certain types of Mylar etc. Pencil shading, layering, dyes/inks are used. Even inkjet masks. Alan Ross refers to all of this as “selective masking”, which is basically anything that isn’t silver masking. He has a lot of useful information on this, as he has made extensive use of these techniques to partially automate the printing of Adams’s negatives.

On the other hand if the goal is to scan the negative, I would not bother with any of this and instead address these problems in whatever image editor is used.

Retouching negatives (and also expert print spotting is indeed somewhat of a dying/lost art), mostly because digital techniques are so powerful.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I can't help with in-person, but I found Veronica Cass Weiss's Retouching from start to finish (here or here) very useful, if you haven't seen it.

[Drew Wiley]

I can't speak for the variable of scanning. I only darkroom print. But in principle, it's pretty darn easy. One of the problems with recent films is that not many have a suitable retouching "tooth" surface to them like older films did. Many are quite slick. HP5 is decent in this respect, perhaps Tri-X too. And remember, it's best to apply treatment to the base side of the film, not the emulsion side. Or the retouching can even be done on a thin registered piece of translucent frosted acetate instead, which means that the original neg is not affected at all, and that you have all the tooth you'll ever need.

Don't bother with retouch machines or even typical print spotting dyes. A variety of smudge pencils can be found at any large art store to experiment with. Red Kodak dye is harder to locate; but a single small bottle of dry power will last you a lifetime, and if necessary an equivalent dye could be ordered from any number of dye distributors under the formal CAS designation. You want to make up various weak dye dilutions in distilled water, and keep these in their own small glass bottles. Use decent quality watercolor brushes and learn to gradually build up the dye, allowing a thin layer to dry before applying the next layer. It's very easy to control. In fact, this pattern of workflow is remarkably quick and efficient once you get used to it. But if you do it on frosted mylar sheets instead of directly on the negative, you can make separate variations and see which works best.

Red dye blocks blue and green light of course, to the degree of density of the red dye itself, relative to black and white printing papers. So to gain the same effect on a flatbed scanner you'd probably need a large enough supplementary sheet of blue lighting gel in the flatbed scanning sandwich as well.

I might just be leading you down a dead end path if you only print digitally. But there is nothing necessarily superior to doing such retouching digitally. In fact, doing it the old dye and pencil smudge way can be not only faster in many cases, once one is experienced, but a lot more nuanced. And it's downright amazing how some people think all of this is somehow obsolete. Forgotten yes, perhaps because there aren't cool bragging rights to telling someone you only spent twenty dollars at an art store instead of a couple thousand for the latest software and workstation. But it's obviously not the object of this thread to talk you into using an enlarger or contract printing frame instead of scanning. Perhaps others have relevant experience in relation to that. But it would seem to me that doing it flatbed, some kind of registered sheet treatment would be realistic, since you only need the emulsion side of the film itself truly sharp.

If the original film sheet is not perpetually sacrosanct, yet another option is just to get a can of Krylon art store clear acrylic spray specially intended to supply retouch tooth to smooth surfaces. It's specific, so don't look for a substitute in a home center or ordinary paint store. There is also the old fast-drying butyl acetate lacquer version of that specifically for photographic use, allowed to be sold in some States, not others; but you need to be a lot more careful with that, fume and flammability wise.

[jnantz]

I learned how to retouch with leads on an old Adams machine, it takes a lot of practice / patience ( understatement ) .. you might find it useful to go to /contact the New York Institute of Photography and see if they have copies of their correspondence course in their library/archives or scour used book stores or the internet for their class. You want to look for their classes that are anywhere from the late 1920s until maybe WW2 ( the golden years you are interested in ). There is a book / module on retouching negatives with lead as part of their coursework. The lady that taught me went through their correspondence program back in the day ( 20s/30s ) and it was the only part of the curriculum they required the students to do in person. when she taught me, we worked on 3.5x5 inch negatives and you practiced and contacted your work each time you did it to see your improvement &c, and eventually you'll be enlarging them to 20x24 without seeing that you retouched them. I can't comment about what the scanner does with the retouching I've only enlarged and contact printed, not scanned the negatives. There is a trick to it, like with PS. you don't want to be heavy handed, there is a Goldilocks sort of zone where it's just right. Maybe you have 2 problems you haven't realized. You need to make a sharpening pouch (fine sand paper) extend the leads from the holders about 2 inches and sharpen your leads by hand so they are extremely sharp (and a point, not a chisel tip ) store them inside the holder tip IN, and you want to use leads that are the kind of soft, you've noticed the hard leads don't work very well unless the negative wants it, depending on how you process your film you may or may not have a tooth on the negative, and it's the tooth you want and surface of the film that will tell you what lead to use, we'd sometimes retouch both sides of the negative. Everything shot was tri x or tri x ortho in DK50 and used unhardened Kodak RapidFix, and PermaWash. Don't bother with the vibrating part of the Adams desk, you'll want to work on your "touch", the vibrating thing always made things a lot harder, unless it works for you, some people barely touch the film and let the desk do all the work. it's not an exact science, but all about a light stroke and building up density of graphite that is feathered.
I've never used fluids but if you are, in addition to what was already mentioned there is a book called something like retouching you're negatives, and I think the author is Jan Miller ( the cover shows someone getting their orthodontic hardware being removed ... is a pretty good resource too ... Good luck with your adventure!
John

[esearing]

No one mentions how to reduce density, say from a bright pinhole light light source in an otherwise dark scene.

[John Layton]

After over one half century of practice...I find myself once again scratching my head about retouching negatives. My "problems" re-surfaced as I started to print large...to 30x40 and then 40x60, where I'm suddenly contending with a number of what used to be unnoticeable artifacts (typically tiny black spots on prints)…now visible in broad areas of even tones (mostly skies, both clear and foggy/cloudy).

Thing is, these spots are extremely tiny on the negatives…even when magnified under my binocular loupe, making it very difficult to apply fluid in anything but relatively larger blobs - and nothing I’ve tried (concentrated croceine scarlet, liquid opaque, spot tone) is anywhere near dense enough to be truly effective, unless the area defined by the spot or dust squiggle has some actual density - which is unfortunately rare.

Another issue I have with croceine scarlet in particular is its tendency to physically build up on a negatives surface, exacerbated by my applying this in very concentrated form. The problem with these little “mounds” is that they can lead to newton’s rings as I use glass negative carriers.

I have experimented with applying dilute K Cyanide to bleach out the spots in between fixing baths, followed by retouching of the now white spots on the print. But this testing seems to indicate a slight re-appearance of the original spots…not as white, but as lightened areas. As one who continues to sell the occasional print, this "the return of the spots!" would represent a nightmare scenario to say the least!

Oh…and the other thing I’ve tried, but with mixed results - is the very harrowing process of using a razor to bisect spots and scratches. When this actually works can seem like a miracle…but when it doesn’t - ouch!

And so…in my gallery/workroom sits a 1970’s vintage Zeiss (transmission) microscope (dual ocular but not binocular) with a nice XY stage - and my plan now is to lay a negative on a glass plate upon this stage, and, using either a retouching brush cut down so that only a very few bristles remain, or the very smallest size hypodermic needle (donated by my wife’s clinic), I will see if I can acquire a bit more accuracy in laying down what I need in multiple applications, until the densities look sufficient to make my job on the other (print) end easier.

In the meantime, I remain, as always...a student - open to suggestions!

[Drew Wiley]

Well, I envy that you have such a nice microscope, but so so many headaches can be alleviated by loading film holders, and then negatives carriers after development, under true cleanroom conditions.
I cut my teeth on large Cibachromes, which are extremely difficult to retouch; and the damn material itself is highly electrostatic, attracting dust. It was a good boot camp for learning to work really clean.

Are you using Anti-Newton glass on both sides of the carrier? If not, why not? But creosin red should only be applied to the back side of the film, not the emulsion, and be very slowly layered up with something like a high quality watercolor brush which will not produce bubbles. The dye needs to be highly diluted just like I explained earlier. Don't use it for tiny spotting issues. And don't forget my
suggestion to work on a registered piece of frosted mylar if the film backside is not itself convenient or have enough tooth. Just be aware that mylar sheeting has to be carefully selected for absence of any visible pattern of its own or random defects.

Maybe you need the kind of microscope and precision laser system an eye surgeon works with. That should do the trick. But after you sell your house to pay for it, it's hard to put a darkroom suitable for big prints in the rear of a camper shell.