Use of X-ray film: technical discussion with example images

[hporter]

For some time i have been using and recommending these in red.

https://www.superbrightleds.com/more.../attributes/13

Randy - I have read your post about these bulbs several times and meant to order one. So last week I did. It is unbelievable the difference it has made in loading film into holders and also loading film into developing drums without scratching up the rear facing emulsion.

This seems such a simple revelation - that being able to see what you are doing, rather than fumbling around in the dark, would be beneficial. But I put it off for so long and now I wished that I hadn't. Few things have made such an impact on me, for less than $10....

So thank you for posting about your results and the product link. I now feel comfortable to try and cut down the x-ray film to 5x7 and 4x5 sizes.

Harold

[HoodedOne]

Excellent HoodOne
But from your last response I infer it to be a scan of the neg
So I would have not thought to use a contrast increasing filter, but let the blue light get into all the crannies
Any highlight blocking you did get is unnoticed in the overall . Very Cool
Scan details?? or you may keep it a trade secret
regards
Ed

No trade secrets here.
The Negative is scanned on a Epson v750 with Vuescan. And although I normally scan in 16bit grey. This image was scanned as 48bit color negative, and saved as 16bit grey. The reason for this change in scanning, was the top-left corner. In 16bit this corner was getting dense black with no detail. The scanning as a color negative gave enough shadow detail.
Imported the image in Lightroom, and only did some minor adjustments. Exported the image directly from LR to Flickr

ps. I also tried the scanning as color negative and converting the green channel to 16bit grey. but this gave a little bit less shadow detail to work with.

[andrewch59]

Well, it would make a nice contact print on VC paper as well I'm asking because it helps others (and myself) to understand what the DR is of a negative exposed and processed this way.
It'll make a gorgeous cyanotype I'm sure; if it prints just eight for that process, you have effectively answered my question

Btw, if the sun keeps hiding for too long, feel free to drop by to use my exposure box!

Speaking of DR values, has anyone tried taking a 4x5 negative scan, enlarging it and printing out a digital transparency to use for alternate printing processes?
Surely the Densities can be adjusted to suit?? Or is there a thread on this topic?

[koraks]

There are numerous threads about it and it's actually the way e.g. Sandy King makes most of his carbon prints at the moment. I've done it as well, but grew dissatisfied with the covering power and pixelation of my inkjet system (Epson 3880 with initially Epson inks and currently Jon Cone inks), although Sandy said recently that inkjet with stock inks should be capable of excellent results. I've made many quite nice cyanotypes and carbon transfers this way. The big advantage is that you can manipulate digitally, which is generally a quicker route to optimal results for most contemporary users, and the ability to use custom curves that exactly suit the process you're doing while producing repeatable and predictable results. Search for "digital negatives for alternative processes" on this forum and on Google in general; you'll find a plethora of manuals, tools, user experiences, example images and even specialized suppliers offering inks, printer conversions and software to facilitate this approach. The concept has been in use for years and can be considered proven technology by now. I personally found it (in hindsight) a smooth entry into alt process printing for people who've done a lot of their work in digital space. For me, though, it also paved the way to a virtually exclusive analog workflow - but that's a different story and should be regarded as as signal that digital negatives are suboptimal.

[andrewch59]

Thanks Koraks for that info. For my gallery prints I scanned all of my xray negatives on my v800 and sent them to Melbourne for printing, as the local guy could not match the quality of the print. I think I would contact a commercial printer of that calibre to make my transparencies. Anyway, that is in the future when I start trying some of the alternate processes, have to get up to speed with xray first

[koraks]

You may want to contact bob carnie on this forum. He makes silver-based digital negatives (Lambda) all the time.

[alanbutler57]

Wyatt and da boys at the Fort Worth Stockyard.

Prior to this I tried an experiment that didn't work at all. After shooting around the yard I tried divided pyrocat: 12 blue x-ray 4x5's in the Jobo 600 ml total solution, 1:40 sol A for 5 min, 1:40 sol B for 10. . . and got absolutely nothing on the negatives, just pretty blue sheets. So, I went back to using 600 ml of 1:1: 100 for only 4 4x5's for this one. Six minutes in the Jobo, Super D, Gundlach Petzval , half speed blue x-ray rated at 25. Negative scan desaturated a little and sharpened.



I'd really like to figure out how to process more negatives at a time, but I'm afraid simply increasing concentrations will make the contrast hard to control.

[andrewch59]

I like that shot too, bit of selenium toner, or use the NIK collection silver effect pro. I am still learning, but find xray very tolerant, to think I use half speed blue at iso100-ish and you are able to get good results at 25?

[alanbutler57]

Its' great you can get 100 out of this! I only tried one test shot at 100 and couldn't salvage anything usable but will have to try again. My SOP is to use an incident light reading when shooting, measure the bright and dark areas and average, usually tending toward overexposure.

[andrewch59]

I just stuck with the recommended speed and it turned out ok for portraits. Although I am not using the same dev concentration as I was, at that time when I started using xray film I used the recommended concentrations of dev, what a waste! I have switched to green now and use that at iso 80, dev is about 1:180-ish