I have recently received my 4x5 negs back from the lab, I used NPI in Houston. On the light box the negs look really sharp (which I'm surprised by considering I'm new at this). I asked the lab to "contact print", they did and put four neg s on one piece of paper. My concern is that the contact print looks soft and no t near as sharp by any means as the negs. I view my negs and prints with a chea p 10X loup. I am using tmax 100 on a horseman 450. Could the contact print soft ness be due to the way in which the lab made the contact prints, ie thickness of glass or from some other reason. I would like to take one of these negs at lea st to an 8X10 or 11x20 (or equivilant aspect ratio). Are my enlargements going to not be as sharp as the negs, I realize that at some point some loss of sharpn ess and detail will be an issue but from a 4x5 negative up to 11x20 should not b e problem if the negative is sharp, right.

Any help is appreciated thank you in advance.

Clark King