Burning and dodging for Carbon Printing?? Or other UV contact printing.

[billie williams]

Thanks, Bill!

[Vaughn]

I usually do not burn or dodge my carbon prints, but once I had a small area that was too dark, and then another time a small waterfall that needed lightening. So partway through the exposure, I just took a Sharpy to the glass of the contact printing frame, then put it back under the UV lamp.

[Greg]

Some thoughts on Digital negatives: I initially started to print Salt and Platinum/Palladium prints using the original negatives. Even with very careful note taking and making density readings of the negatives, still took a lot of precious metals to make final prints. Then I wanted to make Platinum/Palladium prints from some of my old negatives. Dodging and burning mandatory for 99% of them.

Bought: The New Inkjet Negative Companion by Dan Burkholder.
http://www.danburkholder.com/store/p...D_sent%29.html

Personally feel this is the best guide for making Digital negatives. They will be brownish in color. Also a step wedge is added aside the image per Dan's instructions. If you calibrate you monitor, use the same printer settings, and are judiciously anal about everything... well easily 50% of the time your first Platinum/Palladium print will be your final print!!! All of a sudden your $$ outlay for Platinum and Palladium precious metals becomes very manageable.

Precision Digital Negatives by Mark Nelson
http://www.precisiondigitalnegatives.com
A very excellent second resource

FYI: am processing my negatives in Diafine. Not always the best developer if you want to make silver prints, but absolutely the best for making digital negatives from... I meter for the shadows using the Zone system. The density of the highlights seem to be self-masking. Also use the film's inherent/native ASA or even lower and not the high ASAs attributed to using Diafine.

good luck

Greg

[Andrew O'Neill]

When printing film negatives for either kallitype or carbon transfer, I make dodge/burn masks with frosted mylar. If it's a tricky negative, I make an inkjet negative. Easier!

[Fr. Mark]

Maybe I'm crazy, but to start out, I'm going to try to do carbon printing w/o making digital negatives and computer corrections. But good to know about those resources. It also occurs to me that if I'm going to make enlarged negatives, I can dodge/burn at the making the positive step and use that to contact print the enlarged negative, or if i'm clever, I might be able to dodge the film developed as a reversal film. A member on a PM says it is possible to apply different sensitizers to different areas (if I understood correctly) and also possible to "bleach" the image if necessary, too, possibly even in local areas kind of like using Ferricyanide based (?Farmer's?) reducing agents on silver prints. I really need to get my workspace working again after a move, so it may be a good long while before I can get this in action. Carrying on the sharpie approach, powdered charcoal or graphite could be used and it might be easier to feather the edges with it. To do digital negs well I'd need a monitor calibrator, a scanner or a macro lens, arguably a better dslr, photoshop/pixelmator skills, probably a better printer, probably a better computer and monitor and maybe an external drive. I don't have that much coin right now. That said, I've made some digital negatives that print o.k. as cyanotypes and there are a bunch of photos (30k) in my laptop that some small percentage of might make interesting carbon prints... All in good time.

[Andrew O'Neill]

You will find that you won't have to dodge and burn as much as you did when making silver gelatin prints, under an enlarger. At least that's been my experience since I started alt printing 9 years ago.
In regards to digital negatives, I've never used a monitor calibrator. Maybe that's something for people who print colour inkjet photos? You can also make digital dodge/burn masks on Pictorico, or something similar. It works really well, even better than pencils, IMO.

[Vaughn]

My suggestion, and just that. Settle on 4x5 or 5x7 camera negatives to learn the process -- might as well go 5x7. It is a nice size for carbons as one can hand-hold the prints for great viewing.

You are starting a new process, so you might consider making new negatives just for this process. Do not be too concerned about adapting the process to old negatives, but instead make new negatives that fit the carbon process -- both technically and aesthetically. Find images on your GG that do not need cropping, burning or dodging.

Or not. But have fun!

[Fr. Mark]

Vaughn,

That sounds like good advice to start relatively small and simple and learn and enjoy. I've got a great kit for 5x7 and they do make nice sized prints. I may make new negatives and/or use ones I have. I've got a few I'd like to see as carbon prints in 5x7 and 4x5 and even a couple that I would have to enlarge.

Everyone:

I guess what I was afraid of was not the hard work or frustration to "master" carbon printing but that maybe it wouldn't have the versatility of silver gelatin papers. What I gather is that carbon printing can do as much or more as silver gelatin paper. That being the case I hope to spend some of the winter gloom building a workspace and learning this process. It should be fun. Science plus art plus hands on work usually is for me.

Thanks for all the help and encouragement.

[Vaughn]

Carbon printing requires negatives that have a much greater density range than for silver gelatin, so if you have a nice neg that printed with a #3 or #4 contrast filter, you probably will not pull a good carbon print from it...so look thru your negs for ones that might need a #1 filter!

[John Jarosz]

Yes, you can burn and dodge. But that's for later. Start making prints - Vaughn is correct, you need negs suited to the process. If you are having a hard time visualizing a long scale negative, get a Stouffer step wedge that has high densities (I like the T4110 or T2115 - you don't need it calibrated) and include it when you print a neg. You see immediately the difference in range compared to silver.

If you've not made carbon prints, you'll have a lot more important stuff to address before you get to burning and dodging.