mich8261
Well-known
I am new to the darkroom. I understand that c41 films can't be processed in the same chemistry as B&W film. My question is, once I have had my c41 B&W film processed, can I simply print from those negatives the way I print my silver B&W images?
Thanks.
Thanks.
ZorkiKat
ЗоркийК&
mich8261 said:
In theory, yes. C41 BW were designed so that they could be printed in a conventional BW darkroom, using the usual BW printing processes and materials. But in reality, the structure of the C41 BW varies from silver BW negatives significantly enough to affect not only the procedure involved in traditional BW printing, but results as well.
Depending on what C41 BW you use, the effects will vary. Ilford's XP series had been easiest to print on standard bromide papers. Kodak's TCN (havent tried their newer generation C41 BWs) and the defunct Konica Monochrome VX 400 are quite difficult to handle because of their strong orange masking. This mask makes the chromogenic negatives look like colour negatives .
The orange mask cuts off the actinic effects of the enlarger's light and affects how it prints on bromide paper. The latter two chromogenics had the orange masking because their makers decided that having such would make neutral monochrome printing on colour paper easier. This, I heard, had been one of the considerations when Ilford redesigned their old XP1 to XP2 - to make their chromogenic BW negs more 1-hour lab friendly.
When printing strongly-masked chromogenics, you might find that higher contrast papers may be necessary to get decent blacks. Or longer exposures because the orange mask cuts some of the needed blue rays.
On multi-grade paper, the filter packs or enlarger settings may no longer apply. Again, the orange mask is the culprit. Brace yourself to setting the enlarger for #5 and adding some more magenta or blue filters to boost the contrast up and printing times around 5-10X longer than what a conventional silver negative would require to expose paper correctly.
Jay
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R
rich815
Guest
mich8261 said:
Cannot speak for the Kodak C-41 B&W films (and I believe they were indeed designed for printing on a C-41 machine with the orange mask and all, Jay seems to have it down pretty well in his comment above) but I used to print Ilford XP2 on a conventional B&W pro enlarger and processing machine when I worked at a pro lab back in the early 90's. Printed beautifully, especially portraits and product shots in studio lighting. Can you say smooooooth and creeeeeamy tonality?
mich8261
Well-known
thank you Jay. I had a feeling the orange mask would mess things up. I may try it out when I understand the whole process better.
Cheers.
Cheers.
rogue_designer
Reciprocity Failure
This may be a bit simplistic, but I've wondered (and have no way to experiment to see)... if it would be possible to place a Cyan/Blue filter under the enlarger to negate the Orange mask.
Longer exposures certainly, but would that cure the contrast issues caused by the orange mask?
Longer exposures certainly, but would that cure the contrast issues caused by the orange mask?
Henrik
Member
Printing Konica's VX400 went really well the last time i tried! I used Ilford Multigrade RC paper with filter #4
mich8261
Well-known
Henrik,
How similar to the Kodak c41 is the Konica VX400?
Thanks
How similar to the Kodak c41 is the Konica VX400?
Thanks
tomtodeath
Established
ive had success with printing c41 kodak black and white, on ilford multigrade paper and a #4 filter. i did waste a good amount of paper before getting it right.
ps. i love ilfords satin paper, much nicer than pearl.
ps. i love ilfords satin paper, much nicer than pearl.
rxmd
May contain traces of nut
In short: no, because of subtractive colour mixing.rogue_designer said:
I tried that. The problem is the sensitivity of the paper to different wavelenths. Variable contrast papers tend to consist of two different emulsions, a low-contrast emulsion that is sensitive to green and a high-contrast emulsion that is sensitive to blue. By varying the colour of light, the emulsions get different exposures, resulting in variable contrast overall.
Orange is the complementary colour of blue. Your enlarger head emits white light in a continuous spectrum. That goes through the orange mask of the film, which filters out all the high-frequency bluish light and leaves only light with longer wavelengths. In theory, filtering this orange light with a blue filter should produce no light output at all. In practice, because no filter is perfect, you still get some light output, but a blue filter can't add any blue light to what comes out of the orange filter of the mask. This is because of the way filters work, which is crucial to understand: a blue filter doesn't work by adding blue-coloured light, but by blocking all the differently-coloured non-blue light. If you filter orange light through a blue filter, it doesn't get blue, it gets dark instead.
If you try to print Kodak BW400 with its orange mask on variable-contrast paper, the blue high-contrast emulsion doesn't get much exposure, because the orange light from the negative doesn't contain much blue light anymore, while the green low-contrast emulsion gets a lot more. As a result, contrast from such prints tends to be very low. The fact that you can get "decent" contrast (i.e. contrast equivalent to an Ilford #2 filter or so) out of a picture at all is only due to the imperfect filtering done by the orange mask, and in order to reach #2 contrast in the picture, you have to use a #4 or #5 filter and live with comparatively long exposure times. You do get results that way, but I don't find it very satisfactory because you have very limited control over the contrast of the final print. #4 or #5 contrast on the final print is pretty much impossible to get, unless you use a LED colour head with monochromatic blue light (so that the green emulsion does not get any exposure at all) such as blue LEDs, and then you have to live with very, very long exposure times, hoping that the orange mask will allow some of this blue light to pass.
Fixed-contrast paper is no solution either, because the emulsion has different sensitivity; it tends to be sensitive only to high-energy, low-wavelength bluish light, which is why you can use a greenish darkroom safelight if you use fixed-contrast paper exclusively. Since bluish light gets filtered out by the orange mask, you would have to use very long exposure times. I tried that, too; getting a print on fixed-contrast paper with a high contrast specification is a lot of trouble.
The only alternative is panchromatic paper which is sensitive to orange as well. The problem with that is that it's (a) hard to get - there used to be some by Oriental, but it's discontinued - and (b) there is no contrast control, because the paper is sensitive to all frequencies, and (c) you have to work in the dark, because the paper is sensitive to the red light from your darkroom safelight. IMHO it's just not worth it. So I stopped using BW400. Now I stick with XP2, where you just don't have these problems because the mask isn't orange.
Philipp
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nikola
Well-known
I'm not sure but I think that Konica VX are color films?
Niall Bell
Member
Just to throw in another variable to this thread: One can quite easily process C41 B+W film using conventional B+W chemistry.
I have developed XP2 in HC110 without any problems other than a vague magenta tint which fades with time.
The negatives print on B+W paper as well as those from any other film.
Niall
I have developed XP2 in HC110 without any problems other than a vague magenta tint which fades with time.
The negatives print on B+W paper as well as those from any other film.
Niall
monochromejrnl
Well-known
recently made a b&w print from a colour negative...the only problem i encountered was focusing... there was no grain to focus on so i found it very tough to get critical focus...
any tips for me?
any tips for me?
rxmd
May contain traces of nut
Again, panchromatic paper, or you will get very strange rendition of greyscales. What's green on the photo will be red on the negative, papers are insensitive to red, so it will be white on the final print. And what's red on the photo will appear with low contrast, and what's orange will appear with high contrast and very dim. It's nice for experiments, but for good results you need panchromatic paper.monochromejrnl said:
Regarding focusing, if there are problems with that (such as when using microfilm) I tend to use a larger negative carrier and focus on the sprocket holes or the manufacturer's logo in the margin.
rogue_designer
Reciprocity Failure
thanks rxmd - I had a feeling it wasn't something that easy. I've wondered too, if using a color print head and pumping up the cyan channel would help - sounds like that is a slightly better option than straight filtration, but still not as good as just using the right film in the first place. 
Cheers.
Cheers.