Printing J Lane Dry Plates

[Alan9940]

Just exposed and processed my very first 4x5 J Lane Dry Plate this morning--drying at the moment--and I was wondering how all you dry plate shooters print? Do you scan and, if so, do you place the plate directly on the glass bed or will it fit standard Epson film holders (without being able to clip it down, of course)? Do you wet print in a darkroom? Contact print? Enlarge? I'm not sure how I'd enlarge one of these plates, other than placing it on top of a 4x5 negative carrier, then being very careful to slide it into the enlarger. I don't have a carrier that would allow the thickness of the glass.

Thank you all for your input.

[Jim Noel]

I contact them on Pt/Pd like any other negative. I actually use them in place of the glass in a 5x7 contact frame.

[Daniel Unkefer]

I lay them on top of half of an Omega 4x5 carrier (opened up with a file) and 4X projection print them onto 8x10 matte RC paper #2. I have multiple Omega DII's with Omegalite heads. Then I scan the print and post it

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49974381698_873eef0e04_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2j94LAE)Flowers Back Porch J Lane Dry Plate Multigrade dev (https://flic.kr/p/2j94LAE) by Nokton48 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/18134483@N04/), on Flickr

9x12cm J Lane Dry Plate. Projection 8" F4 Brass Petzval.

[Nodda Duma]

They will fit the standard Epson 4x5 holder just like you think they would. :)

You can also contact print or enlarge off them.

I see many folks scan the whole plate including glass edge and notch. I do the same by laying emulsion down on the platen.

[Greg]

Years ago I scanned thousands of mostly 5x7 glass plates for a museum. I just carefully placed the glass plates with the emulsion side down on the scanner's glass. As very careful as I was, I did end up with some fine scratches in the same place on the face of the glass and had to replace it. For the next similar project of scanning over a thousand glass plates, I first placed a sheet of thin acetate (pad of "artist's" acetate from Dick Blick) on top of the glass. Compared 11x14" prints made from 5x7 glass plates with and without the piece of acetate, and absolutely no difference whatsoever. Compared to 11x14" prints made from 4x5 glass plates with and without the piece of acetate, and there was the slightest degradation in sharpness when using the acetate, but not enough to practically matter... I had to use a magnifying glass to see the difference. I realize that the focus plane is a fraction of a mm above the glass, but since I was enlarging the LF negatives not all that much, it really didn't matter.