Silver gelatin prints UV exposure unit

[hiroh]

I never printed any silver gelatin, I don't have an enlarger, or proper darkroom.

I only printed quite a few platinum palladium prints, and I have the UV exposure box that I made myself.

I'm interested in learning silver gelatin printing, but having a darkroom is not an option for me at the moment.

Is there a way to use the UV exposure unit and large digital negatives to print with silver gelatin? Does anyone have an experience with this? Would I be able to use my 11x14 digital negatives that I used for platinum palladium, for silver gelatin? Or do I need to create a different curve?

I'm so curious and interested to try this out, but before investing some money in silver gelatin chemistry and paper, would like to hear if anyone already tried this?

[John Layton]

Kind of out of my usual range here...but assuming that you'll be using VC paper, then either a combination of two filters (N.D. and green) cut to size to fit the contact frame - or perhaps find a dark green glass filter...(the kind used for "development by inspection") and use this in place of the glass in your contact frame - assuming this filter would have enough density to deal with the U.V.? (the green in either case to deal with negatives that are likely a bit "punchy" in contrast for silver gelatin printing).

Not sure about the above, so it would be great to have others with more UV-box experience to chime in here!

[jnantz]

hi hiroh
I'm a bit confused, are you planning on using darkroom chemistry or you don't have access to a darkroom and do not plan on using photographic paper as it was intended with developer fixer &c? If you plan on using developer &c you won't want to use a UV light source it's not matched to the paper's useful spectrum, but with a 300W bulb and a reflector you can make contact prints on silver chloride paper with an large negative ( curves might be more similar to salt print ( gelatin silver chloride being similar to silver chloride curves than PT/PD curves ) or with a enlarger type bulb and a reflector and enlarger type filters you might be able to make contact prints on regular enlarger paper ...
if you do not have a darkroom at all, you can make images on photo paper through brute force with a lot of light ( uv or blue ) as well.
I have been doing this brute force exercise for years, both in a darkroom with UV and outside with a mix of UV and sunlight, with a camera, making contact prints and camera less images, it is fun. you will end up with a visible latent image ( like you would if you do alt process work ) but you won't develop them out and might have trouble keeping the images from being ephemeral.. ( like a lumen print or solar graph or Nicéphore Niépce's retina prints that are unfixed )
you can't really burn and dodge these. the image is silvery grey and doesn't really look like a regular dark room print. if you use home made or bottled emulsion you can get a different tonal range, sometimes blues, blacks and browns, sometimes reds, greens and yellows. Sometimes the images from non commercially coated papers last a long time. ( I have some I made 15 years ago stored in a shoe box that haven't altered, but ones made later with regular photo paper stored right next to them or stored in a light tight environment turned grey probably a few months after they were made, yup I've tossed hundreds of prints ) if you go this route don't bother with filtration it won't do you any good ... you just have to accept the idea that your prints will not look like regular dark room prints and turn into a blank sheet of paper ... you can rephotograph them with a stationary camera ( a scanner ) or with a regular camera. if you scan them, just remember every time the light beam passes, the image will turn grayer and grayer ... if you can find 1 tray you can try to stabilize the photographs, I've use use sodium carbonate first then caffenol with a bunch of sodium carbonate and then fixer, as well as sodium carbonate heavy caffenol and then fixer. I can't say how long they will last for but at least they won't turn grey as fast as un fixed ones ...

[bob carnie]

I print silver images from digital negs all the time. But to answer your question you will need to have a light tight room with safelight to make this happen, also the uv light units may be way to fast for modern silver papers. but Micheal Smith and many others
have used a hanging lightbulb to a timer with filters underneath and use a contact frame or large sheet of glass .

I have two enlargers in my space also a Cone Edition UV system in my dim room to do Pt Pd and gums . for the silvers I use the same negative as I would create for the PT PD prints, use and out of focus light from my enlarger and lay the paper emulsion up, the film emulsion down and then lay down a 24 x 30 plate glass to make contact and do my exposures. It is a lot of fun and very , very good.

Bob

[Drew Wiley]

Contact printing lights were once routine. Easy to rig up. It would be wise to avoid too much UV due to risk to your own eyes, and most halogen bulbs are simply too bright anyway unless you're using a slow paper like azo. But an ordinary yellowish tungsten light bulb is not ideal either if VC papers are in mind. I simply use my ordinary colorheads to project the light, with the contact frame on the baseboard. A dedicated UV exposure system would seem counterproductive for silver gelatin paper.

[javierternero]

Without being 100% sure, as I have never tried it. I think that if you could find some Printing out paper (Silver Chloride), you could contact print your negatives , using your UV unit. I believe, the last paper commercially available was the Chicago Albumen Works Centennial , but have been out of production for a few years now. Most of the people still printing that way, coat their own paper themselves.
Good luck whatever route you take

[jnantz]

Without being 100% sure, as I have never tried it. I think that if you could find some Printing out paper (Silver Chloride), you could contact print your negatives , using your UV unit. I believe, the last paper commercially available was the Chicago Albumen Works Centennial , but have been out of production for a few years now. Most of the people still printing that way, coat their own paper themselves.
Good luck whatever route you take

Peter Schrager makes his own POP paper... but with POP you still have to FIX the prints in sodium thiosulfate and sodium carbonate, wash and maybe tone them .. which may or may not require a darkroom / chemistry ... a handful of years ago there was a guy in NY State ( Victor ) who was making and selling POP paper ... not sure what happened to him.

[Daniel Unkefer]

VC Contact Printing Box by Nokton48, on Flickr

If you want to learn to contact/split print on variable contrast silver gelatin paper, consider building this unit which utilizes the big Ilford Multigrade filters. I built this from foamcare and it works really well and is quite precise. I copied the design, Tim Layton gets the credit for this one. Bravo Tim!

The reflector came from Lowes, it's only ten bucks

Also, I used Rosco ND gel filtering to cut down the light intensity inside the box. WAY WAY WAY too bright even with the lowest wattage tungsten bulbs. I bought one and two stop ND Rosco gels at B&H.

[hiroh]

Thanks all for answers!

So, basically, UV light should be avoided for silver gelatin printing. In that case, my UV exposure box is useless Or, half useless — I can make another top side of the box where my UV lights are attached, and attach the light more suitable for silver gelatin, so I can interchange them depending of if I'm printing silver or pt/pl.

Kind of out of my usual range here...but assuming that you'll be using VC paper, then either a combination of two filters (N.D. and green) cut to size to fit the contact frame - or perhaps find a dark green glass filter...(the kind used for "development by inspection") and use this in place of the glass in your contact frame - assuming this filter would have enough density to deal with the U.V.? (the green in either case to deal with negatives that are likely a bit "punchy" in contrast for silver gelatin printing).
Not sure about the above, so it would be great to have others with more UV-box experience to chime in here!

I assume this would affect the look of the print, depending of which filter color I use.

hi hiroh
I'm a bit confused, are you planning on using darkroom chemistry or you don't have access to a darkroom and do not plan on using photographic paper as it was intended with developer fixer &c? If you plan on using developer &c you won't want to use a UV light source it's not matched to the paper's useful spectrum, but with a 300W bulb and a reflector you can make contact prints on silver chloride paper with an large negative ( curves might be more similar to salt print ( gelatin silver chloride being similar to silver chloride curves than PT/PD curves ) or with a enlarger type bulb and a reflector and enlarger type filters you might be able to make contact prints on regular enlarger paper ...
if you do not have a darkroom at all, you can make images on photo paper through brute force with a lot of light ( uv or blue ) as well.
I have been doing this brute force exercise for years, both in a darkroom with UV and outside with a mix of UV and sunlight, with a camera, making contact prints and camera less images, it is fun. you will end up with a visible latent image ( like you would if you do alt process work ) but you won't develop them out and might have trouble keeping the images from being ephemeral.. ( like a lumen print or solar graph or Nicéphore Niépce's retina prints that are unfixed )
you can't really burn and dodge these. the image is silvery grey and doesn't really look like a regular dark room print. if you use home made or bottled emulsion you can get a different tonal range, sometimes blues, blacks and browns, sometimes reds, greens and yellows. Sometimes the images from non commercially coated papers last a long time. ( I have some I made 15 years ago stored in a shoe box that haven't altered, but ones made later with regular photo paper stored right next to them or stored in a light tight environment turned grey probably a few months after they were made, yup I've tossed hundreds of prints ) if you go this route don't bother with filtration it won't do you any good ... you just have to accept the idea that your prints will not look like regular dark room prints and turn into a blank sheet of paper ... you can rephotograph them with a stationary camera ( a scanner ) or with a regular camera. if you scan them, just remember every time the light beam passes, the image will turn grayer and grayer ... if you can find 1 tray you can try to stabilize the photographs, I've use use sodium carbonate first then caffenol with a bunch of sodium carbonate and then fixer, as well as sodium carbonate heavy caffenol and then fixer. I can't say how long they will last for but at least they won't turn grey as fast as un fixed ones ...

Sorry for the confusion, I'd use silver gelatin chemistry and paper. I even have some Ilford Multigrade warmtone fiber and RC paper around the house that I never used. I have a room that is completely dark during the night, but it's a living space, not a permanent darkroom, so I can set it up temporarily during the night, and disassemble it after I finish the work. That's the reason I don't want to buy an enlarger, because it's usually bulky, and not the thing that you move around all the time.

I print silver images from digital negs all the time. But to answer your question you will need to have a light tight room with safelight to make this happen, also the uv light units may be way to fast for modern silver papers. but Micheal Smith and many others
have used a hanging lightbulb to a timer with filters underneath and use a contact frame or large sheet of glass .

I have two enlargers in my space also a Cone Edition UV system in my dim room to do Pt Pd and gums . for the silvers I use the same negative as I would create for the PT PD prints, use and out of focus light from my enlarger and lay the paper emulsion up, the film emulsion down and then lay down a 24 x 30 plate glass to make contact and do my exposures. It is a lot of fun and very , very good.

Bob

Do you make your pt/pl curves using QTR? And then use those transparencies for silver gelatin printing?

Contact printing lights were once routine. Easy to rig up. It would be wise to avoid too much UV due to risk to your own eyes, and most halogen bulbs are simply too bright anyway unless you're using a slow paper like azo. But an ordinary yellowish tungsten light bulb is not ideal either if VC papers are in mind. I simply use my ordinary colorheads to project the light, with the contact frame on the baseboard. A dedicated UV exposure system would seem counterproductive for silver gelatin paper.

My UV is in the box, so I don't see it direct, pretty much never.

Without being 100% sure, as I have never tried it. I think that if you could find some Printing out paper (Silver Chloride), you could contact print your negatives , using your UV unit. I believe, the last paper commercially available was the Chicago Albumen Works Centennial , but have been out of production for a few years now. Most of the people still printing that way, coat their own paper themselves.
Good luck whatever route you take

Peter Schrager makes his own POP paper... but with POP you still have to FIX the prints in sodium thiosulfate and sodium carbonate, wash and maybe tone them .. which may or may not require a darkroom / chemistry ... a handful of years ago there was a guy in NY State ( Victor ) who was making and selling POP paper ... not sure what happened to him.

As an absolute beginner, I'd try avoiding coating my paper at this stage. I'd rather use anything that's already available on the market. As I said, I have some Ilford Multigrade papers, but I can buy anything that would work.

VC Contact Printing Box by Nokton48, on Flickr

If you want to learn to contact/split print on variable contrast silver gelatin paper, consider building this unit which utilizes the big Ilford Multigrade filters. I built this from foamcare and it works really well and is quite precise. I copied the design, Tim Layton gets the credit for this one. Bravo Tim!

The reflector came from Lowes, it's only ten bucks

Also, I used Rosco ND gel filtering to cut down the light intensity inside the box. WAY WAY WAY too bright even with the lowest wattage tungsten bulbs. I bought one and two stop ND Rosco gels at B&H.

I have very similar unit, also built by Tim Layton's design. But I have UV lights instead. I'm curious, does that light you have there spreads evenly on the paper? How large you can print? I have 16x20 contact frame, but in order to print that big, I don't think one bulb in the middle will cover the whole paper. So far, I printed only pt/pd in 11x14 size.

[hiroh]

Here's my UV exposure box. For Pt/Pd it works great.