Black borders around prints and sprocket holes

When looking through books of his work, IMO quite a bit is cropped, stories of what HCB did and did'nt do/use are many and varied. Personally, I reckon if he could come back today, he would welcome technology, and probably skulk around Paris wielding a Sigma DP1 - or similar!:D
Dave.
 
I believe the original look and technique came from shooters using Leitz enlargers. The 35mm neg holder is slightly larger than the 24x36mm negative. I was told that the "composition lines" that were evident on the print, i.e. black lines, confirmed to the editor that the picture had not been cropped, hence, you were viewing 100% of what had been shot by the photographer.
 
I have been printing "Full Frame" prints lately and been very happy with the results...
Normally=for many many years= I would crop the neg to fit in the standard formats (8x10, 5x7 & 4x5) but was never really happy doing it...recently I decided to try printing FF...
I am sooooo happy with the prints NOW that I'm doing it this way...
I'm a tight cropper to begin with and don't normally allow for cropping in the negs when printing...I do my framing in-camera.
All I do now during printing is print within the sheet...so I get a slightly smaller image BUT it's how I saw the picture when I took it...
Beseler makes a FF neg holder for the 23C not sure of the other models so you can get a slight black border on your print...
Printig FF isn't a "Status" thing for me...it just allows me to print the neg the way I shot it and I have no worries on what to crop out when printing...
 
Yes. You can use the same file to smooth out the edges. You'll want to do this anyway to get the burrs off. This way you can slightly taper those inside edges so that they don't come anywhere near the negative. Then paint the edges black to eliminate any possible reflections off the new silver edges.

Which way should the tapering go?

#1
/--------- \
Negative
\--------- /

or

#2
\ ----------/
Negative
/---------- \
 
I realise this is about analog printing but if anyone is interested Deviant Art has some photo borders to download for Photoshop use. Here are a few from one person. There are others if you search. Used sparingly and sensitively - a border really has to match the specific image to look good - they can produce an interesting outcome. I have seen the types of borders (or are the frames?) used a lot in Photo Magazines.

http://andrearusky.deviantart.com/gallery/#_browse/resources
 
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Tim Gray - I don't want to hijack this thread, but what developer/time/agitation for these TMZ shots?

 
It's even easier to do it digitally. In Photoshop, choose "Select all." Then go to Edit, and select "Stroke". Adjust your border size (I like to use 20 - 25 pixels), and click Apply. Go back and click on "Deselect." You're done.

This crops into the image.
 
The filed edges should leave the carrier with the smallest openings next to the negative top and bottom. Get yourself a Saunders 4 way masking easel. This allows you to center 5x7, 8x10, or 11x 14 paper in the easel while printing wide white borders with or without a black line.
 
I created my own "digital" borders that mimic film edges but really aren't. I'm not trying to represent one media as being something it's not. But it does tie into the heritage of photography and it is also a very useful compositional tool -- it keeps the whites from flowing out of the photo and it reinforces the depth of the black shadows.

I would never use those DV or Kubota frames, cheesy yuck.
 
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