making an enlarged negative

Can someone tell me how I can increase negative size, say beginning with a 6X6, how would you go about working it up to a 4X5 or even an 8X10 for contact printi ng. Do you have to do a print and then photograph the print to get a negative an d thereby lose detail? Or is there some way you can go from negative to negative and retain all the fine detail in the negative. I read somewhere that Edward We ston took portraits with a 4X5, but he eventually printed the final 8x10 with th e contact method; however the article neglected the details of the steps in the process. In another sorce, I read where you can go from a negative to a positive on film with an enlarger, but one: how would you time it (must be very slow spe ed film), and what are the steps to get back to the negative you need to do the contact print. If anyone happens to know, thanks in advance.

David, This same question was asked a few days ago. There were lots of good an swers to that question. It would probably be easier just to check it out on the photo.net site, Q&A page, "Older Messages", "Darkroom" threads, "Making enlarge d negatives (8x10 from 35mm).

Don't worry, I'm not going to scold you. We're a lot more civil on the LF side!

Good luck, Sergio.

The obvious answer is to start with an 8x10 original, but if you had done that y ou would not have asked the question. Each time you copy a photo to make a negative you will lose informatio n and add noise. I make a lot of copy negatives at my night job, and often see the copy negative picking up the surfac e texture on the print. This is more of a problem with old black-and-white prints than with new color prints.

Two other methods I know of involve computers. Send your negative to a service b ureau for drum scanning, crop and balance the colors or tones in PhotoShop. Now you can either send the file t o a service bureau for output onto a larger negative, or printing through an excellent color printer. (You can print a nagative image onto any printer through the appropriate selection in the Print dialog box.) Then go into the dar kroom and make your contact prints.

After all this you may find it is not worth the trouble because your original 6x 6 might make a better