Keeping the film rebate for contact prints

[unityofsaints]

I was wondering what everone's opinion was on this - just having started wet contact printing 8x10 again I realised don't like the black notches left by the film holders to I get out my Dahle and cut it off, even for test prints I may not keep. The counterargument is that there's some image area lost (especially in the corners) - does anyone on here keep it for that reason, or for aesthetics? I know adding in rebate where there was none before is all the rage online these days...

[Vaughn]

I print the entire image, including rebate for my platinum prints, but rarely for my carbon prints. Quality of the edges (rebate's) mostly...a bit more controlled with platinum printing. Some images look better floating...some people prefer one over the other...all much of a muchness.

But I do like including that 'extra' area as part of the image - 3 examples, two recent 5x7s and an older 8x10. Nothing dramatic in those parts of the corners most of the time -- but occasionally a tree trunk or a branch disappearing into the corner. In the first one below, the extra in the upper corners help flesh out the cliffs.

[Jim Noel]

I'm with Vaughn. I usually print the entire negative.If the rebate is distracting I mask it out with overmat when presenting.

[LabRat]

In the labs, the rebate areas would be covered with silver mylar stripping tape and left on...

Or, you could make a thin mask of rubylith film, thin black plastic, or clear mylar masked with stripping tape to place under printing glass to make a border mask... Or some would just tape stripping tape under printing glass...

There are ways to register neg under mask so it's EZ to place neg under glass if you figure out a method for yourself...

Steve K

[Tin Can]

I wasn't there back in LF heyday, but read once somewhere that studio LF imaging usually allowed extra 'free' space around the subject on GG and neg

I am not saying rebates are good or bad in any way

I will say my 2-1/4 X 3-1/4 sheet film negs look very odd with rebate

[Alan9940]

Like Vaughn, I print the entire negative, including rebate, for my pt/pd prints, but trim the rebate off for my silver gelatin prints. It's really simply an esthetic choice that you'll make for yourself.

[LabRat]

But for enlarging, our neg carriers crop out the rebate, so a usual practice...

Steve K

[ic-racer]

There was a recent thread on projecting printing the rebate with 8x10 enlargers. I like the framing of the rebate in some prints, but it comes at a cost of including the edges of the negative that are frequently imperfect. So, 90% of the time I crop out the rebate. Not so much as I don't like it or the enlarger carrier cuts it off, but I don't want edge imperfections like this. In my experience, although it looks like it would be easy to 'burn that away' burning only makes things worse.

207875.

[neil poulsen]

I would never retain the rebate. It's a foreign element of the composition. I mean, for cryin' out loud, it's not even consistent around the perimeter. It's also artificial.

Perhaps, just maybe, if I originally visualized the image on the ground glass with this perimeter, I might retain this border. But, that's unlikely. Why would I went to include an element in the composition, that's not even part of the scene???!!!

I just finished mounting an 8x10 contact print of the bottom portion of an exterior white door with white siding on either side and dark brick underneath. (Built in 1850's.) Retaining the rebate would have just ruined the overall feeling and whiteness of this print.

Not for me. :)

[Vaughn]

There was a recent thread on projecting printing the rebate with 8x10 enlargers. I like the framing of the rebate in some prints, but it comes at a cost of including the edges of the negative that are frequently imperfect. So, 90% of the time I crop out the rebate. Not so much as I don't like it or the enlarger carrier cuts it off, but I don't want edge imperfections like this. In my experience, although it looks like it would be easy to 'burn that away' burning only makes things worse.

207875.

I'll have to look at that print again -- it is hanging at the gallery, so it will be a few days. Not quite sure what the imperfection might be...unless you are referring to the reproduction of the print.

The rebate is part of my image, so it is not 'foreign' as far as my compositions go -- but I understand others feeling quite different about it. Any border, visible or invisible, around a scene does not exist as part of a scene -- that is one of the things photographers do -- create borders. With the lens/camera, with the rebate, with a window mat, with negative holders, with easels, with a straight edge and sharp blade. Which ever way best works for that person.

[Jim Jones]

I'm with Neil. Cropping the image favors the subject. Printing the rebate favors the photographer's technique. The image alone tells me more about the photographer than does the inclusion of the rebate.

[Drew Wiley]

I find the inclusion of that kind of extraneous non-information distracting, and often kitchy. Anyway, the term in the US is rabbet, not rebate. Doesn't matter on this forum because we all understand what is meant, but the cross-Atlantic confusion over the respective spellings drives woodworkers and picture framers crazy.

[Vaughn]

Not to be confused with rarebit. Something my mom would cook up towards the end of the month before my dad's next paycheck would come in. Melted Velveeta Cheese over Saltine Crackers. I liked it.

[Drew Wiley]

It could get rather humorous if some woodworking neophyte bought a shoulder plane made in England labeled as a rebate plane, and they came back a month later wondering why their rebate check never arrived. In wood window sales, where both a rabbet and a rebate might be involved, it was important to explain the distinction. And there was a Midwestern maker of very nice miniature rabbet planes who made a pun out of the whole thing by marketing those little tools as "bunny planes".

[Vaughn]

Thanks, ic-racer, I had another look at that image yesterday on the wall. The reproduction (using copy stand too small for work) is a little hot along that edge, but there is definitely a slight lighter tone in the image area along the bottom rebate. Might have been part of the scene, might be edge over-agitation (8x10 tray developed in 12x16 tray), either way, it works very well for me.

This is one of my favorite redwood images (tho I have quite a few favorites). Even accounting for personal bias, I do not see it as an imperfection, but as part of the strength of the image. Occasionally, one needs to let the light continue its flow thru the image...any amount of darkening there would just damn up the light. YMMD.

PS...and the black rebate keeps the light from just soaking into the matboard. I want the viewers feet to get wet!