Show your large prints from large format negatives
This is the biggest print I've ever made, 32 x 40 inches or 80x100 cm.
It's composed of sixteen 8x10 inch prints, stuck together with clear adhesive tape. I made it on an office laser printer.
Because the negative itself was 8x10 inches, there's no grain and plenty of resolution left, even at that size. It's only a 4x enlargement.
Re: Show your large prints from large format negatives
Good idea. Too many of us are so obsessed with the ultimate in print quality that we would never attempt to make a print on an office laser printer, even just to try such a big print on for size. Good on you. I recon you should have it in your exhibition, to draw attention to the print quality of some of your better prints. If everything is perfect, print quality will go unappreciated. And shurely it is as valid as a piece of art as any other.
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Re: Show your large prints from large format negatives
These are 36x45 inch prints, which is the largest size I could go and still have a nice border on 44 inch paper.
They're Epson prints from drum-scanned 4x5 Portrait 160.
Re: Show your large prints from large format negatives
Ken, I don't follow...
You scanned your 8x10 negatives, then printed them out one by one and then taped them together??
Re: Show your large prints from large format negatives
The original is a 4x5 Fujichrome transparency I shot with a Toyo 45A, and scanned on an Epson 2450 scanner. A friend printed 4 sections with his Epson 2400 and glued them together on a poster board as an experiment in making a poster sized print from joined sections. Overall image size is 24x31 inches. It looks far better than one would expect and contains much detail.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/55432652/DS...ersion%202.jpg
Re: Show your large prints from large format negatives
Quote:
Originally Posted by
C_Remington
Ken, I don't follow...
You scanned your 8x10 negatives, then printed them out one by one and then taped them together??
Sorry if I was unclear. I scanned an 8x10 negative and sized it to 32x40 inches. Because I don't have a printer which will make a print at that size, I divided the single 32x40 image into 16 8x10 inch sections, and printed all 16 of them one at a time. I then taped them together and hung the resulting image on the wall.
Re: Show your large prints from large format negatives
Its' called tiling. The technique can be done almost flawlessly using Kens' method where, I presume, the sections were cut with an exacto knife or equivalent so the edges match almost exactly. Usually a faint line appears between the tiles but I've seen a few composites where the butt lines were virtually invisible.
The equivalent can be done using an enlarger by projecting the full, say 30 X 40 inch image, on the baseboard but exposing only one 8X10 sheet at a time. More difficult because each exposure needs to be dead on or the slightest change in density will be pitifully obvious.
Nate Potter, Austin TX.
Re: Show your large prints from large format negatives
Thanks Nathan - I will try using a sharp blade next time. I cut this one with a paper trimmer and the pieces don't all fit well. From a distance it all blends together of course, but that sounds like the right way to go.
This has been a real eye-opener: enough to consider getting a larger printer $$$$ :rolleyes:
Re: Show your large prints from large format negatives
In high school to pester a teacher, I scanned in an old 1960's yearbook photo of the teacher. I printed it (using tiling and paper cutter as described) as about 6' high on the B&W laser printer. It had the visual effect of the big murals of famous dictators, but was not very flattering to the teacher.
As far as digital printing today, if I need something bigger than 13x19" which my epson does, I'd hire someone else to do it. Big printers have to be used more regularly than I would be apt to use it.
Re: Show your large prints from large format negatives