Enlarged negatives with ortho film

[gnd2]

I've been doing a lot of searching but still having trouble wrapping my head around this so hoping to get some help specific to what I'm trying to accomplish. I want to do this all in film/darkroom, no digital.

My goal is to take my 4x5" negatives (FP4+) and make a negative enlarged to 8x10" to make contact prints with (regular RC paper prints for now, looking to do Kalitype later on). In the process, I'd also like to retouch the film (the 8x10" interpositive for highlights and the final 8x10" negative for shadows using pencil. I've tried retouching the 4x5 negative but want to be able to get finer detail).

My big question is, what film would be suitable for this?

I've played around with duplicating using my FP4, but working in total darkness with the pan film and short exposure times isn't very fun, so I started looking into ortho film. I came across the Arista Ortho Litho film which has an attractive price. I realize litho film is normally very high contrast for line work but they say it can be developed for continuous tone with dilute paper developer (and I've read even film developer can work better), and the slower speed sounds like a plus for the darkroom. The question is, will I really be able to get a nice continuous tone image from this without a ton of experimenting or is it going to lead to a lot of frustration that would be avoided by just using another more suitable orhto film?

Anyone here have experience doing something similar? Suggestions for film? Does my idea even sound reasonable or totally off the wall?

Thanks,
Gary

[Harold_4074]

Consider x-ray film. It is really cheap, can be handled under red light (there are "special" filters for green/blue films, but they are pretty close to ortho).

I have made both enlarged interpositives and contact duplicates on Kodak CSG and had a lot of fun doing retouching at both stages. I don't think that CSG takes crocein scarlet as well as conventional film, but it has emulsion on both sides so that helps. Pencil retouching, naturally, works pretty much the same once the retouching medium is dry. I found it a bit tricky to estimate the density change due to red dye (to my surprise, scanning in color and then using only the green channel didn't work well) but Spotone works just fine.

The last time I did this, I used dilute Dektol (about 1:4) for the dupes, but have since worked out the protocol for HC-110 in order to get lower contrast for cyanotypes, and will probably try it for duping the next time it comes up. I also want to experiment with an airbrush; the phrase "airbrushed out" used to come up in the context of 1950s-era pinups, so it must have had some utility even though it is uncommon nowadays.

[bob carnie]

I remember ortho 25 contact with original In HC 110 not sure of dilution

this created a flat dupe which was then put in the enlarger and 16 x20 FP4 was used , once again HC110 .Today I would try Pyro dev instead of HC110 for this stage.

made beautiful negatives for contact.

The only issue that I encountered was tremenously fast enlager speed which curtailed dodge and burn, but you could tame this of course with NDensity , (why didn't I think of that at the time]

flat pos do a contact your final prints will be sharper.** important**
one or two tests on the film developer times and you can build your contrast to tailor the 8 x10 FP4 to your process.

Once you have this process nailed you just have to keep feeding same types of negatives to it.

But I gotta ask Why not just shoot 8 x10?

[interneg]

Ilford Ortho+ - http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/...7119221450.pdf is what you want - has similarities to FP4, generally easy to handle, just watch out for the emulsion being a little delicate at times & definitely more sensitive to safelights than paper. You can alter its contrast & curves quite easily & it's available in 25 sheets of 4x5 or 8x10 as a regular stock item.

In the interests of reducing the number of processes, you might want to investigate getting your camera film processed as BW transparencies (I use Photostudio13 in Germany) & enlarging them to a neg in one stage. I'm (slowly) experimenting with this method & it does seem to offer quite a lot of potential.

[pdh]

flat pos do a contact your final prints will be sharper.** important**

Can you unpack this in a bit more detail bob?
I have a lot of 35mm and medium format negatives I'd like to make alt prints from.
So far I've managed this via paper interpos but I'd like to refine a bit more

[gnd2]

X-ray film? Interesting, I'll have to look into that.

Ya, the Ilford Ortho+ looks like the best option I've been able to find from a usability standpoint, pretty pricey though. But, the way they talk about it in the description it makes me wonder if it's really that different from the Arista Ortho Litho in terms of the contrast and controlling it with development?

I'm not shooting 8x10" because, well, I don't have an 8x10" camera The thought had occurred to me but I also want to eventually do even larger sizes and enlarging the negative seemed more flexible and economical than getting bigger cameras and lenses.

Neutral density sounds like a good idea for the exposure time issue (I'm having a "duh" moment now too).

And yes, I'd like to have the "flat pos" comment unpacked a bit too I was planning to enlarge the interpositive to be able to retouch it then contact that for the negative. Does it make a difference to contact the interpositive then enlarge to the negative?

BTW, I'm in the US (So. Cal) but can't seem to access my profile to update the location. So looking for materials easy to obtain here.

I'm curious about how they did airbrushing back in the day also but every search I do only turns up photoshop tutorials.

Thanks for the responses so far!

[interneg]

Ya, the Ilford Ortho+ looks like the best option I've been able to find from a usability standpoint, pretty pricey though. But, the way they talk about it in the description it makes me wonder if it's really that different from the Arista Ortho Litho in terms of the contrast and controlling it with development?

Vast difference - you can shoot O+ in camera, process in a regular developer (eg ID11 1+1) and get a normal negative. You can use different developers to bend the curve shape, and you'd need something like Phenisol to be getting extreme contrast. It's aimed at a range of uses from masking to copying and a whole lot of others where curve and contrast control matter.

Litho film is designed for something else entirely & in using for regular photographic processes you are having to depart well outside what it was designed for - that is unless you're needing to shoot screened separations.

[gnd2]

Vast difference - you can shoot O+ in camera, process in a regular developer (eg ID11 1+1) and get a normal negative. You can use different developers to bend the curve shape, and you'd need something like Phenisol to be getting extreme contrast. It's aimed at a range of uses from masking to copying and a whole lot of others where curve and contrast control matter.

Litho film is designed for something else entirely & in using for regular photographic processes you are having to depart well outside what it was designed for - that is unless you're needing to shoot screened separations.

I see, that's what I was afraid of. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Going outside what the film was designed for and the consequential decrease in image quality are precisely what I want to avoid.

At this point it looks like my best options are:
1. Deal with pan film in the dark
2. Bite the bullet cost-wise for Ilford Ortho
3. Experiment with x-ray for cost reduction.

[Erik Larsen]

Here's a couple links that might be of interest
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/En...nlargeneg.html
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/NbyR/nbyr.html

[Tin Can]

Here's a couple links that might be of interest
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/En...nlargeneg.html
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/NbyR/nbyr.html

I'm basically doing that process with X-Ray. I wasn't aware of the process until recently.

I posted earlier today in X-Ray and 6X17 if anybody is interested.