Digital Negative For Silver Printing Question

[IanBarber]

I have printed a step tablet consisting of 11 blocks of grey going from 0%k to 100%K.
I printed the step tablet onto to digital film using Matt ink through the Epson ABW driver from an Epson R3880.


194634

The first issue I see are the warmth in the grey patches which I can only presume have come from the warmth of the Epson R3880 Inks but not sure if that will skew the results.

Having printed the step wedge, I now need to make a contact print in the darkroom.
My chosen paper is going to be Ilford MG Pearl.

Question:
What is the best way to make the contact print.

Do I ....

Put a 2 1/2 filter in the enlarger, make a test strip of the clear par of the digital film until I reach max black and then make a full contact at that time or have I go that wrong.

The enlarger is a diffusion enlarger if thats important.

When I get a proper contact print of the step tablet, I will then use that to map the values of the contact print to the original file and make a correction curve in Photoshop.

Ian

[bob carnie]

Ian

What I would do is set a filter grade you feel is normal for your work... make a step tablet on the paper via contact with your normal printing setup ... I would recommend Richard Boutwells system for making curve adjustments and repeat till you have a perfect step wedge... he provides a target step wedge with his program...

I use my normal setup for contact and do not worry which enlarger I use.


do this once and you are set for life.

[IanBarber]

Ian

What I would do is set a filter grade you feel is normal for your work... make a step tablet on the paper via contact with your normal printing setup ... I would recommend Richard Boutwells system for making curve adjustments and repeat till you have a perfect step wedge... he provides a target step wedge with his program...

I use my normal setup for contact and do not worry which enlarger I use.


do this once and you are set for life.

Thanks Bob. For Silver Digital Negatives, is the Ilford MG pearl finish suitable in your honest opinion.

[bob carnie]

Thanks Bob. For Silver Digital Negatives, is the Ilford MG pearl finish suitable in your honest opinion.

I have made prints on ART 300 from silver digital negs, Bergger fine art, Ilford Warmtone and Ilford Matt... I am pretty sure any paper will work once the negative stage is calibrated.
I really endorse Richard Boutwells system, he was Michael and Paula's long time assistant and has a very good grasp of silver contact printing, and is really crazy about making his software system work.. to boot a really nice young man worthy of support.

[Peter De Smidt]

Another plus 1 for Richard and his system.

[Alan9940]

Another +1 for Richard's software. My only wish is that he was more communicative with his user base. Over the time I've owned a license for QCDN (since it was released, actually) I've only ever found out about upgrades by accident. I've contacted him a few times asking about an upgrade to QCDN for crafting digital negs for contact printing on Lodima, but have made no progress. I gotta believe that with his workshop with Paula coming up in a few weeks he certainly should have the product ready to go.

[bob carnie]

I have found Richard sometimes a bit tough to get hold of I think he is busy with a new child, helping Paula and trying to survive.

[Richard Boutwell]

Another +1 for Richard's software. My only wish is that he was more communicative with his user base. Over the time I've owned a license for QCDN (since it was released, actually) I've only ever found out about upgrades by accident. I've contacted him a few times asking about an upgrade to QCDN for crafting digital negs for contact printing on Lodima, but have made no progress. I gotta believe that with his workshop with Paula coming up in a few weeks he certainly should have the product ready to go.

I announce updates with my bwmastery.com email list, and always send an announcement when there is an update. Its true, I am bad at email, but most of my time is spent chasing around a toddler and trying to catch up with a backlog of work.

The new version of the app (v1.4 for macOS, and now v1 for Windows) has new curves for Lodima Grade 2, and Ilford MG Classic FB.

Here is a link with a way to download the new Windows app: https://www.bwmastery.com/quadtoneprofiler-quickcurve-dn-windows

[Greg]

Highly recommend "The New Inkjet Negative Companion, Digital Negs Made Easy" by Dan Burkholder. Have tried several methods of making digital negatives for Platinum/Palladium, Salt, Silver FB, and a few more alternative processes and Dan's procedure just always worked. Biggest plus with his procedure/method is to include a step wedge (gray scale on the print) just to the side of the image. Graduated from RIT in the 1970s, and from the Materials and Process course (Hollis Todd) where we plotted dozens of H&D curves, and Zone System testing under Nile Root (based on Minor White's "ZONE SYSTEM MANUAL) and G. E. DeWolfe with his Attenuator... well having a calibrated gray scale printed on the side of all of my images, well it couldn't get any better for me.