Black and White prints from Color Negatives?

Gagaphotoboy

Gagaphotoboy

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What do u think about this,it's possible of course..? i friend of mine did it,but it was long time ago..if you have any advice ..how it goes and what i can expect,how is gonna look and so..what paper i should use,is there any difference and so on..i just have some photos that i made with color film that i think they gonna look better as black and white,thanks.
 
Mostly it looks 'orrible, with bizarre tonality, but a vast amount depends on the subject and you can quite often get nice results with lith printing.

Remember that VC paper is sensitive to green and blue, and graded to blue only, so yellows (blue in the neg) will print disproportionately dark, while cyans (red in the neg) will not necessarily register at all.

Also, the orange mask means that printing times are very long indeed.

Personally, if I had to do it, I'd do it in Photoshop rather than a wet darkroom. And that's from a devotee of the wet darkroom.

Cheers,

Roger
 
Kodak used to make a paper called "Panalure" especially for this purpose and there are some details still on their web site.

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/g27/g27.jhtml

I've never used or indeed even seen any. I tried printing colour negatives onto old Agfa Brovira "normal" grade paper many years ago and Roger's description of 'orrible fits nicely. The best results I got had excessive contrast and really emphasised grain that wasn't visible in a colour print of the same size. The exposure times were also very long but it did dawn on me that I was exposing the paper through a film base that was roughly the same colour as my safelight....!

Ilford now seem to offer a digital printing service onto proper B&W paper (which I haven't tried) so (sadly) scanning and Photoshop seems like the sensible way to go.
 
It can indeed be done. Try it at least once or twice before you give up.
The results are a mixed bag, I used to print color negatives in AGFA Brovira grade 4 with good results. This is due to the fact that color negatives have a low contrast and that horrible orange mask. I would assume that more modern fixed grade papers would do the trick as well.

With MC papers things are a bit more complicated since the different colors in the negative will act as different grades of contrast.
I would try to first print straight, then print using a split: 70% of the time with no filter and then with a #5 filter expose the rest 30% (check if filter factor is 2 so time will be 2x30%)
Panalure has been out of production for years unfirtunately.
Ilford may have a siilar paper but it would be labeled "professional" for machine processing soemthing or the other.
 
Yes, I have done it and I agree with Roger...
I don't try anymore because I could not get results worth keeping...also back when I tried there was no digital anything as an option but now...it's an option...
 
I did this recently with some tiny colour negtives not sure what the format is called. I wanted to give some old pictures to some friends to celebrate there 50th birthdays. I only printed to 5X7 and the results were mixed from 30 year old negatives but they were really pleased. I seem to remember the contrast needed a bit of umph but most came out good enough for memories.

Last week I was printing my father in laws negatives from his honeymoon in Paris from 1950. they were black&white from a post war Voigtlander TLR . It was very poignant to see my mother law so full of life as she now suffers from Alzheimers. The passage of time gives photos such tremendous resonance even if the quality dips.
 
Thank you guys for advices..what do u think about scanning the negative and than printing..what about the printing resolution? Is this cheating? 🙂
Have these few photos that i would like to see them as b&w.
 
I've also tried it as well and have had mixed results. I guess it depends on the negative and what you photographed. I had one good print turn out, but most others had really bad tonality and getting acceptable contrast required quite a bit of work.
 
Thank u guys ..so the best is to scan the negative or as Al Kaplan says to copy color print with b&w film,this thing with copying,sounds good too.
 
I'm glad that I didn't read this thread first before I tried to print this 😉

2647127020_c5aca02d5f.jpg


5x7 print on Ilford Multigrade RC.

Film: Kodak BW400CN (yes, with orange mask).

I just have to crank out the Magenta filter quite high to increase the contrast (the beauty of color enlargers). Exposure time isn't that bad either, I don't have my notes with me, but I think it's about 9 seconds at f8 aperture.
 
Gagaphotoboy said:
What do u think about this,it's possible of course..? i friend of mine did it,but it was long time ago..if you have any advice ..how it goes and what i can expect,how is gonna look and so..what paper i should use,is there any difference and so on..i just have some photos that i made with color film that i think they gonna look better as black and white,thanks.
Click to expand...

You can do it, but you will lose a LOT of contrast when printing on b&w paper. Use your strongest contrast filter (you might even consider stacking two #5 filters), keep your fingers crossed, and hope that is enough.
 
Rodger, can't believe you said that. But as you said, it depends on the image. Some come out fine, some don't. It also depends on how much you put into it. Maybe there is a use for Photoshop besides cropping. Just kidding.
 
Panalure used to be good, as is Al's making of B & W copy negatives. Nowadays I scan negatives and take the converted files to a digital printing shop. There are sometimes problems with unwanted colour casts, which I escape by a mild sort of sepia toning.
 
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