Can you "see" in negative?

Can you "see" in negative?

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erikhaugsby

erikhaugsby

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Many times, especially when wet printing, I have difficulty in fully judging how a print will look until after it has developed as a positive. Can any of you here read the nuances of a negative as easily as a positive?
 
No I can't, but this is not a problem for me as I scan all my negs for contact printing on my inkjet.
Only the good ones will see the darkroom from inside😀

Fabian
 
Jamie123 said:
When I hold up a negative to a light I can sometimes see the "positive". hope this makes sense 🙂
Click to expand...

I've heard of this before, and it has worked for me on occasion. However, I'm more concerned with reading a negative at print size, when enlarged but not actually printed.
 
Jamie123 said:
When I hold up a negative to a light I can sometimes see the "positive". hope this makes sense 🙂
Click to expand...

Hey, That's the thing I do...Yes in fact I can tell from looking at a neg if it's worth printing...then the challenge of finding the proper paper to print it on.
 
These people who can 'see' a negative probably also think they can eyeball their exposure too. Just kidding.

An early form of photography used a glass negative pressed against a flocked back, which created a positive image. It was called an Ambrotype. Some folks still make those today. Superceded by the ferrotype (tintype).
 
Sorta, sorta not. When I look at a negative (ie: held up to a light or on a light box), I have a good idea of how a shot came out compositionally and whether it was sharp, contrasty, or exposed well (or atleast whether it will make for a difficult print to work with or not). I'm definitely better at judging it than before, that's for sure. It's one of those things that will improve with experience.
 
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Jamie123 said:
When I hold up a negative to a light I can sometimes see the "positive". hope this makes sense 🙂
Click to expand...

I used to be able to do this regularly. The trick is to hold the negative between you and a very dark background. Then shine a light on the emulsion side of the negative to make the "dark" parts of the negative appear lighter than the background. Try it, it works - on silver B&W negatives, that is.
 
The question was about "reading" the projected negative I think ? Well that depends on the neg - the more complicated the shot or the lower the contrast, the harder it gets. Of course, by that stage most people have already seen the contact sheet, so it is maybe a combination of the two.

The ambrotypes, and shining-a-light-on-the-neg sort of idea, work by light reflected off the silver in the emulsion, so to try that use a slightly thinner neg. It can look interesting on 5x4, mounted on gloss black perspex for example, especially with a little collection of them mounted together. Best made via a contact, or projection, print on to ortho film as a safelight makes it easier to see what is going on.
 
bmattock said:
These people who can 'see' a negative probably also think they can eyeball their exposure too. Just kidding.
Click to expand...
Ha! That's me. I'm pretty good at reading a negative, and I often carry an un-metered camera while leaving the meter at home. My negatives generally come out fine. At least they are always printable.

As for judging negatives, it's a valuable skill, but I try not to lean on it too much. A few years ago I took a print class with George Tice, and he scolded my lazy practice of going straight to printing from negatives without making contacts or work prints. He stressed the importance of analyzing both the negative and the positive, to know as much as possible about what you have to work with before trying to make final prints. I try to work this way now, and to keep all my files organized with negatives and contact prints; but I admit that sometimes I'm still lazy and jump straight to final prints, especially if I am in a hurry with something.

Another related thing I used to do which G.T. stressed was a bad habit was to work with compostion on the printing easel. He said always look at your contact sheets first to choose images; then make a first test print full frame, and if you want to crop, experiment with cropping on the test print using a pair of cropping "L"'s (cropping frames). This way you are looking at positive and can make good repeatable choices based upon what you will really end up with. He said that looking at a negative projection under the safelight is a lousy way to decide upon your final composition. This makes sense to me. I confess I still do it the "wrong" way sometimes out of laziness- but I can attest that I generally come up with better results when I do it the right way, and don't cut corners and skip steps. Just like how my negatives are often better when I bother to carry a meter.🙄
 
I view negatives all the time on a light table. It's an excellent way to judge composition. On the other hand, making a contact sheet can help me to better judge the pictures. However, I rarely make a proof sheet as I find that it's not worth the effort. Even so, if I need to judge the shadow or highlight detail, then the lighttable and loupe are my tools of choice.
 
I usually put a white board on the desk with a small halogen light shining on it and look at the negatives "back-lit" this way. Over the years i have figured out how a certain negative will look that way and how it will respond in print. Many years ago I decided to shoot some film and not do contacts (boring and required 9x12 paper as i use 6 across 7down neg-pages and they dont fit on 8x10 paper). After a while the un-contacted film started to pile up and procrastination set in. "Ok, I will contact them when I have 100 rolls to do". Of course I didn't and now there are about 7500 rolls neatly filed in pages, but no contacts. It was sheer desperation that forced me to read negatives!
I find looking at negs on a light table gives me a good idea of sharpness but it throws me off with gradation and contrast.
 
Jamie123 said:
When I hold up a negative to a light I can sometimes see the "positive". hope this makes sense 🙂
Click to expand...
This works perfectly, when the background behind the negative is black, and you hold the neg toward a light source. So the transparent part of the neg gets dark, and the black part, when well reflected, gehts light. I used a matte black cloth and an old table lamp. Controlled my negs in positive with a magnifier, before making contact prints or scanning them.
Alas, today I have a tiny LCD screen on the camera for that kind of control...
Didier
 
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I can get a reasonable idea of things like contrast (which is very different to image density), whether there is any shadow detail and whether highlights are blown. But I've never been able to see in my mind what the overall positive image is like - tonal gradation is completely beyond me with a negative. And that's why scanning is a real godsend to me these days.
 
Not only can I see in negative, I can also take light readings by sight, count Mississippis to time developer and check the temperature with my pinkie stuck in the top of the tank!!

🙂
 
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