Printing with rebate on 8x10 enlargements

[misterelle]

I'm in the process of filing down a negative carrier to allow for rebate printing when I enlarge 8x10 negatives and I'm curious if anyone has experience with getting a consistent black rebate. As an example, when I see Richard Avedon's large prints from In the American West, I have to assume that there was some extra darkroom work done to perfect the edges, or maybe his printer even used a mask of sorts for consistency. I typically get tiny light leaks around the top corners that require some burning to correct in a contact print, and the sides of the rebate are rarely even in thickness. I'm using a grey backdrop so it's very noticeable when the light sneaks in vs using a white backdrop. I'm sure to an extent it helps to print with high contrast and to tone afterwards. There's a photo of him holding a print of Truman Capote and on that one you can see the imperfections of the rebate, but in America West it's pretty clean. Any thoughts or techniques out there to keep things crisp?

[jp]

I would probably take a black or red plastic piece the size of the intended print image area, and attach a digital negative of the rebate appropriate for that film and contact that print that onto the paper.
I've only contact printed rebates with contact printing frames and don't bother with the whole filed down film carrier thing.

[interneg]

Glass carrier. Litho neg mask for the images that were cropped. Retouching.

This isn't terribly complicated stuff. If you are using film holders in good condition, properly seated in the camera back without errant leakage from wear and tear, processing the film with adequate agitation in sensible mainstream developers, and enlarging in an enlarger with a appropriate size light source & glass carrier, you'll get good, consistent rebates from sheet formats. The only tricky bits are if you want to add a litho (or similar) rebate mask to make a cropped neg look seemingly uncropped.

[jnantz]

I'd make a scan of a 8x10 print whose rebate you like make a negative of and put it in the enlarger and combination print it when you make your prints, better yet just expose the film for the rebate and put that in your enlarger and combination print with that. I've no idea how avedon did his, but a friend used to use a big glass negative carrier ( in her Durst Lab... ) to get full rebates of her 4x5 negatives, just took a little burning and dodging to print them the way she liked.

[John Layton]

Oversized glass carrier to allow for printing rebates as they are with their negatives - to allow for the very subtly unique characters of each rebate...to help convey the uniqueness of each photo. Look at those Avedon rebates carefully - are they all exactly alike? Nope!

[interneg]

Oversized glass carrier to allow for printing rebates as they are with their negatives - to allow for the very subtly unique characters of each rebate...to help convey the uniqueness of each photo. Look at those Avedon rebates carefully - are they all exactly alike? Nope!

Easy enough to generate a suitable mask from the original neg - standard issue graphic arts techniques from the time. Highly likely that the kit Avedon's crew were using at Modernage had pin reg, which makes the whole procedure much easier. The available evidence recounted by those involved was that several of the images are crops, not all - and that the cropping was (from my understanding) quite slight to tighten specific compositions.


I've no idea how avedon did his, but a friend used to use a big glass negative carrier

The available documentary evidence seems to show: Saltzman enlarger in the studio darkroom, De Vere horizontal enlarger at Modernage.

There are even lazier ways than registering a mask to make real fake holder rebates (some for neg/ pos, others pos/ pos). Let's see if anyone can guess them.

[ic-racer]

I made some of those 8x10 enlargements in the 1980s when the book first came out using the school's enlarger. It was tedious as the negative carrier was only just big enough.

Years later, with my own Durst 10x10 enlarger I was still challenged. The negative carrier is only just big enough and the light box coverage is only just to the edge of the film. Longer lenses (360mm) give a larger view of the light box than smaller lenses (240mm).

The hard part (other than centering the negative on the carrier and the light box) is making the transition from black to white on the outer border.

One way I got around that was to move the blades out farther with the intention of trimming the print and dry-mounting to get the sharp black-to-white transition.

If you read up on Avedon you will see they used an enlarger bigger than 8x10 and they also did use some masks for cropped images. Obviously combination printing won't work making the fake borders, two separate exposures are needed, very tedious to them up getting the paper in the easel in the exact correct spot the second time etc.


“The printing is a nightmare technically,” wrote Avedon in early December of 1984

Negatives also required work, either with re- touching, to block off the background so that it would remain white, or with masks, to give cropped images the black border that was Avedon’s signature.
The Making of In the American West
Article in Journal of the American Institute for Conservation · December 2008 DOI: 10.1179/019713608804539574

255414
255415

[ic-racer]

In spite of the technical challenges, I did make a few prints like that. Mostly just to prove to my self I could do it. Attached is a 16x20 printed in that manner on a Durst. You can see the black border is not even all the way around, because that is how the image sits on the film. If one wanted it perfectly even, one would have to crop the image and use a fake border with a second exposure.

For all my other 8x10 printing, I use a clean white border that crops the image a few millimeters all the way around.

255416

[interneg]

Obviously combination printing won't work making the fake borders, two separate exposures are needed, very tedious to them up getting the paper in the easel in the exact correct spot the second time etc.

Agreed - and I should have made that clearer! A lot of the big horizontals had pin reg - and that would make a procedure like this easier - if you make the fake rebate mask the right size relative to the size of the piece of neg being used (given that the procedure would be two step, not a big deal to do).

[jnantz]

There are even lazier ways than registering a mask to make real fake holder rebates (some for neg/ pos, others pos/ pos). Let's see if anyone can guess them.

frank peroni-o used to surround some of his digital work with rebate. it sure used to get people's skivvies in a twist .

===

good luck misterelle!

[misterelle]

Glass carrier. Litho neg mask for the images that were cropped. Retouching.

This isn't terribly complicated stuff. If you are using film holders in good condition, properly seated in the camera back without errant leakage from wear and tear, processing the film with adequate agitation in sensible mainstream developers, and enlarging in an enlarger with a appropriate size light source & glass carrier, you'll get good, consistent rebates from sheet formats. The only tricky bits are if you want to add a litho (or similar) rebate mask to make a cropped neg look seemingly uncropped.

I was thinking the same thing about the film holders. I have various ones seem to be in good condition (hard to qualify that) and about 12 in total, all with varying degrees of light sneaking in on the edges up to about 1/2cm in some spots. I keep the holders in the dark until they're going into the camera and than back to the dark until processed. Not that I disagree with you at all, I just might need to reassess them and make notes on which ones are giving the best results to limit the work later on. I might also just buy one new holder for the sake of comparison, though that won't help with the current project.

Thanks for the reply!

[misterelle]

Thanks for the replies everyone! I've never posted here before and didn't realize that I wasn't getting the email notifications on replies until I logged back in to check. I'll reply to the specific comments as I go through them.

[misterelle]

I'll have to find out the differences between a digital neg and using the graphic arts film that I have, when it comes to how they'd render a mask on a final print. I'm using a glass carrier in the durst enlarger and it's 10x10, so only a slight modification is needed on two sides to get the effect. I think some focused dodging and burning will be required no matter which way I go!

[misterelle]

I made some of those 8x10 enlargements in the 1980s when the book first came out using the school's enlarger. It was tedious as the negative carrier was only just big enough.

Years later, with my own Durst 10x10 enlarger I was still challenged. The negative carrier is only just big enough and the light box coverage is only just to the edge of the film. Longer lenses (360mm) give a larger view of the light box than smaller lenses (240mm).

The hard part (other than centering the negative on the carrier and the light box) is making the transition from black to white on the outer border.

One way I got around that was to move the blades out farther with the intention of trimming the print and dry-mounting to get the sharp black-to-white transition.

If you read up on Avedon you will see they used an enlarger bigger than 8x10 and they also did use some masks for cropped images. Obviously combination printing won't work making the fake borders, two separate exposures are needed, very tedious to them up getting the paper in the easel in the exact correct spot the second time etc.




255414
255415

I'm on the same enlarger with a 300mm lens so I'll have to test to see the result once I file it down. I'll be matting right to the outer edge of the rebate on the prints so that should hide things nicely, otherwise a new challenge emerges. Thanks for the info!

[misterelle]

Ah that's great. I have the same "issue" with the rebate being uneven, but I can definitely live with that if I can prevent the slight light leaks I'm getting just inside of the rebate.

[ic-racer]

I use the Durst Laraneg negative holding system which is glass and a fixed size, so there is no capacity to 'file it out.'

Let us know if you are able to get some good results. The black border really does help some subject matter.

[misterelle]

Do you have any resources on the techniques for making the masks? I can't seem to find anything anywhere!

[interneg]

Do you have any resources on the techniques for making the masks? I can't seem to find anything anywhere!

I don't want to sound flippant, but this is not difficult at all.

You'll need a film holder (easiest way to generate the correct size/ shape), some litho film and some lith developer made up for lithographic use, not for 'lith' printing. The one small headache is that (by the sounds of it) you don't have a 4x5 glass carrier for your enlarger. It might therefore be worth finding an 8x10 film holder that is missing its darkslides (they break!) and using that to generate the mask, as it will drastically simplify things - you'll be able to make your print, then contact the mask straight on your 8x10 sheet. What you want for your mask is a Dmax black area where the image would go, and clear where you want to print black on the print. I'll leave it up to you to work out the methodology. You can go through multiple steps if you need to generate other specific sizes, but again, I hope this is obvious from a logical perspective.

There are other options too, black card, metal plate etc cut to the right shape will work fine too. A 4-blade easel with a steel top surface, an appropriately sized & shaped opaque metal/ plastic/ card mask and a magnet or 2 to hold it down would also do the trick. Again, I'll leave you to work out the order of operations as you'll learn much more that way. At a certain point, registration methods will become more necessary.

Also probably worth your while looking up some old graphic arts manuals and/ or some traditional compositing techniques too.