Contact Print -- white boarder?

[Dean Lastoria]

Thanks for all your ideas. Just when I figured I'd tried everything -- graphics materials -- My high school graphics teacher would be ashamed of me. I'll be busy masking and printing this weekend. Dean

[Brian Ellis]

If you have any trouble finding any of these materials, you could just have a frame and matting store cut a 5x7 (actually about 4 1/2 by 6 1/2) window in some plain old mat board large enough to cover your paper and then some. Put the negative and paper under the glass and the mat board on top of the glass. That's what I did and it works fine though you have to be careful when positioning the mat board over the negative. I'm not familiar with rubylith but if it's somewhat transparent it might be easier to position over the negative than the mat board.

[Lukas Werth]

I am not at all sure whether this answer will be of any use for you, but I have one suggestion:

If you really like contact prints - which I do - then normal gelatine silver paper does not carry you all the way. In this case you may consider taking up alternative processes with longer tonal scales and much more richness in the midtones: with these, you may get nearly the whole tonal spectre of the negativ printed down (as platinum and palladium both have become quite expensive since some time, kallitypes or argyrotypes are a process to consider). But this is a whole new area; you will probably also need other negatives. Obviously, I have no idea how much you know about these things already; if you want more information, please mail me privately.

Lukas