Making my own enlargements - need help, plz.

N

Natalia

Guest
A couple of weeks ago I shot Kodak Professional 400UC and although the prints
came out tack sharp and corectly exposed there was a blue cast to all
of them. Wal-Mart's machine gooffed. Yesterday all the print (from
the same lab) looked fabulous! I'd like to do the enlargements (both
color and B&W) myself on Nikor 6x7 dichroic enlarger. I got this kit
also:

http://store.ultrafineonline.com/yhst-2405092478071/dakitlaou.html



Questions:

1. what chemicals would I need
2. what paper would be best


~Nat
 
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I believe I saw someone on eBay selling a reasonably priced starter kit for RA-4 chemistry.

Otherwise, the basic chemicals are Ektacolor RA-4, parts a, b, and c, plus Ektacolor RA developer starter. Then there is Ektacolor RA-4 bleach fix, parts a and b.

Temperature is important. I use a Nova slot processor. It also requires more work/skill to set the color filtering than it is to determine exposure and contrast when printing traditional B&W.

I buy my RA-4 paper locally, so I'm using Kodak Endura.

My problem with RA-4 printing is it is so consuming that I often disappear for an entire weekend. Because of this, I'm seriously contemplating a dye-sublimation printer as my next photo purchase!
 
Hi, I saw you were speaking of dye sublimation printer.

I've seen that on ebay and read picture quality was great.

Have you ever seen some print made with dye sublimation printers ?

Most of the people don't ever know it's existing, ink jet is everywhere though quality is not so amazing.
 
Solinar, befor you jump for a dye-sublimation printer have a look at the modern ink jets.
I haven't used the Tektronix Phaser 440 for years!
 
Solinar, thanks for the advice. I am trying to find a photo supply store locally, but there isn't any around where I live. I wonder whether Sam's club would carry photo chemicals....

Would I be using the same chemicals (and paper) for both color and B&W with the diachroic head?

thanks
 
Color printing requires a very different set of chemistry and photo paper than B&W. In this age of digital capture, scanning and printing, I still look forward to my darkroom sessions printing B&W. Color printing on the other hand is much more toxic, less forgiving to sloppiness and requires a quite bit more attention to detail.

There are a couple of room temperature kits for color printing. Tetanol and Besseler both offer chemistry packs for room temperature printing. The kit I'm more familiar with is Tetanol Mono PK. Try Adorama.com.

If you really have interest in basic darkroom techniques, I highly recommend, "The Basic Darkroom Book", by Tom Grimm. Generally, one will want to get their feet wet so to speak by starting with B&W printing and processing.
 
LilRedSpy said:

Would I be using the same chemicals (and paper) for both color and B&W with the diachroic head?

thanks
Click to expand...

No, B&W and colour are very different!

I haven't developed C41 myself, although some say it's not so different to B&W aside from more chemicals and VERY strict temperature and timing controll.
As far as I've been told it is doable in a tank but easyer in a processor like this one Jobo Colour Processor
and for enlarging you need another set of chemicals and a very good eye for filtration or better an analyzer like this one Jobo Analyzer

Here we have a photo store where you can talk to the very knowledgeable operator, in fact she is a master printer, and get your prints to your liking. They are more expensive than Wal-Mart but worth it and do up to 6x9 negatives on a Fuji Frontier. Try to find a place like that, best place to start searching are photo stores which did pro B&W in the past.
 
I used to do my own color negative printing. It gets addictive when you see how much better the prints are than ones you get from a high-volume photofinisher.

But you don't get to make many of them, because making them is tough! There's much less batch-to-batch consistency with paper and chemicals than there is with black-and-white, so you have to re-tweak your filtration settings every time you start a new batch of anything. Then, just about the time you've got everything dialed in and are CLOSE to a print you're happy with... you run out of something and have to start tweaking again!

Also note that unlike with b&w, in a color darkroom you have to be able to handle the paper in near total darkness -- the only safelight you're allowed to use is so dim that about all it does is remind you of how much you CAN'T see.

And... unless you print almost all day, every day, a color analyzer is just about a "must" -- but you'll be surprised at how often your negatives do NOT contain an area that corresponds to the color for which your analyzer is calibrated.

So, doing color printing from negatives will be very educational, and you'll get a lot of satisfaction out of getting a print the way you want it. But your productivity, in terms of how many good prints you can make per weekend, will be much lower than black-and-white -- which, I think, is the main reason color printing never caught on with the hobbyist/serious amateur even to the limited extent that b&w printing did.

Maybe your answer for now is just to find a better lab, and reserve your enlarger's dichro head for variable-contrast settings on b&w paper...
 
jlw,

yep, I'll be doing B&W for now. Will get me a good book --> some chemicals + paper...

Oh, can I make B&W prints from color negs?
 
LilRedSpy said:
jlw,

yep, I'll be doing B&W for now. Will get me a good book --> some chemicals + paper...

Oh, can I make B&W prints from color negs?
Click to expand...


I'm reading "Mastering Black-and-White Photography" by Bernhard J. Suess, Allworth Press, 1995. It's enjoyably written. Might be a little outdated in parts, I don't know. Suess says panchromatic papers are usually used to print B&W from color negatives - Oriental New Seagull and Kodak Panalure, as mentioned by Joe, are given as examples. It says they can only be handled in complete darkness because unlike conventional B&W orthochromatic paper, panchromatic paper is sensitive to red light. This book is full of short, concise entries on complex topics. Just thought I'd recommend it for browsing.
 
I think Panalure is not produced any more, and since Forte is in trouble, their version is also not available...

As for printing color negs on 'regular' VC B&W paper - it can be done (tried it myself), but....

-) the tonal scale will be a bit weird - everything with a lot of red in it will be very light; you can expect very pale-looking people, if you print portraits.

-) since color negs don't have 'real' grain, but dye clouds in their film base, once you do larger prints, you won't get grainy prints (which can look quite nice), but weird, kinda mottled pics, with lower apparent sharpness.

-) printing times will be veeery long, as the orange film base swallows a lot of light.

-) you'll have to dial in a lot of contrast on your enlarger's head (meaning, more magenta, if you have a color head), otherwise you'll get very flat prints.

Roman
 
I bought a box of Panalure in October to print some indoor exposures which had that wonderful yellow hue from the tungsten lighting.

I can't say whether or not it is still made, but it is in stock at Adorama.

http://www.adorama.com

At $76 for box of 100, you need to use every trick in the trade to determine a proper exposure for each neg quickly.

As mentioned above, don't even think of turning on a safe light before the fixer bath has been completed.
 
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Let me throw in an off-topic comment.

Back in October, I did notice that my prints made at home on a twenty year old Durst enlarger were much sharper than those made on a quarter of million dollar Frontier printer.

It leads me to believe that operator wasn't scanning my medium format negs at a high enough resolution.

In short, the quality of a machine enlargement these days is very much dependent on the quality of the scan.
 
Have you tried :

LIBERTY CAMERA CENTER. 337 CARONDELET ST, NEW ORLEANS, LA
70130. (504) 523-6252?

They should have darkroom/enlarging supplies. New Orleans also has one of the best collections of old/used bookstores around. Some of those written back in the "golden age" of B&W enlarging are terrific sources of information.

-Paul
 
My best investment was going to a local college for some photo classes. I now have my 30 year old Durst enlarger at home and am having a blast developing my B&W film (roll my own too) and printing....
 
Photo shops near colleges are a good place to find supplies and equipment. Frequently students sell their equipment after only a semester, and good useable stuff shows up regularly. Also B&W darkroom chemicals are readily available since so many colleges offer basic photo classes.

-Paul
 
Years ago when I did my own color enlargements, I got the chemicals and paper from Freestyle. It was an easy to use kit, non-temperature critical. Developing was easy and boring. My advice is to find a good developing source for your color.

Now B&W is a different story. Your personal creativity comes through with B&W. You can take one negative and get a different look everytime you print it. If you look at some of Ansel Adams prints from his early period and the same negative printed later in his life, his vision of the photograph would change.

Get some Dektol, stop, and fix and go at it.

Brian
 
Go to the Freestyle website (they are physically located in Los Angeles):

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/

Put "Darkroom Kit" into their search engine. There are several quickie ways to get started with film and printing.

I've been buying from them for nearly 40 years.

-Paul
 
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