Negative sleeves and contact sheets

jackbaty

jackbaty

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I have what feels like a dumb question, but here goes...

I usually cut my negatives (35mm) into 6-frame strips and file them in PrintFile sleeves. I've recently set up a darkroom and would like to begin making contact sheets. A roll of 36 frames cut into 6-frame strips is too wide for using 8x10 paper for contact sheets.

In the future, which sleeves should I be using in order to best create contact sheets? I see they make them with 7 strips of 5, but according to my rudimentary math skills, that's only 35 frames, which I've never completely understood.

Or don't folks print contact sheets from sleeves? Bigger paper? Fewer frames?
 
Well, there's usually one bugger at the beginning or end of the roll.

I proof before I sleeve, fwiw, preferring emulsion to emulsion contact, so I've not any advice to give you.
 
I bought cheap chinese 12x10 grade 2 paper for contact prints. It was about $18 a box for 50 sheets. Works great!
 
I make contacts in strips of six, laid directly on an 8x10" piece of paper, then under a bit of polycarbonate glazing (replacing the piece of glass that got smashed, oops).

Doesn't the unsharpness, due to the thickness of the sleeve, really mess up being able to judge the details of the picture under a magnifier ? Otherwise a bigger bit of paper would do the trick. I think the Paterson (non-sleeved) contact-printers use 12x9 1/2" don't they ?
 
I've always removed the negs from the sleeves to make the contacts. I could stock a different size paper for contacts, but I always want my contacts to be on the same paper emulsion as the final prints, if at all posssible.
 
Why can't you look at the prints through a loupe? I proof through a sleeve always, and the contact prints look fine.
 
They cannot be as sharp than if they were layed directly on the papaer - there is the thickness of the plastic and distortion.

No sleeves here either - directly onto the paper. I only recently met someone who was contact printing with his negs inside sleeves and I was tres suprised. Why?
Just did 18 contact sheets last night.
 
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Well at least the answer wasn't obvious :)

I think I'd prefer keeping them in the 6-up sleeves. That probably means removing them for proofing and overlapping each strip slightly per the earlier example. My darkroom skills are so basic that I doubt the sharpness difference between a sleeve vs no sleeve proof would be an issue. Learning though!

Thanks all.
 
Needless to say removing the negatives from the sleeves, placing them on the paper, arranging in a nice grid and so forth is pretty time consuming compared with placing the sleeve on a piece of paper. If the exposure is wrong, or I want to burn or dodge some of the negatives, then I'd have to do the same process all over again.

The negatives in the sleeves may not be as sharp as they would be if they were out of the sleeves, but mine look sharp enough for my purposes... namely, evaluating the exposure, cataloging my negatives, and deciding what I will print and the approximate crop (if any). I don't need pin point absolute sharpness. They are not so unsharp as to make evaluation difficult.
 
Although it is indisputable that emulsion-to-emulsion is the best way to contact print, proofing is just proofing. I generally look at the negs through a loupe to determine sharpness if I have any question about it... not the proof.
 
contact sheet printing frame

contact sheet printing frame

nostalgia? back when negative sleeves weren't as clear as today, i used a harvey brenson (u.k.) printing frame to make a contact sheet, then filed that with the negative sleeve in a folder. the negative strips are held in diagonally cut grooves in the Plexiglas cover, so everything stayed flat and aligned.

greetings from hamburg

rick
 
dfoo: You burn or dodge a PROOF? No offense, but wrong.

A proof is to see what the density and tonal range are, in addition to the composition. It gives you base information that guides you to the requirements for a final print. If you manipulate a prrof, you soon become lost. For 35mm judging sharpness in a contact is fruitless.

And a proof is not "just a proof". My practice has been to make every effort to have better proofs than most people's final prints. This meant calibrating everything -- exposure, film developing, proof exposure, paper developing -- so that viewing a proof of a shot I liked not only informed me about the final print, but inspired me to actually make the print.

The more I cared about my proofs, the better my prints were.
 
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At this stage in my, er development, a "Proof" is nothing more than evidence that I've done something :). I'm tickled just to have something recognizable come out of the chemicals.

I just tried the no-sleeve approach using just some glass and an 8x10 piece of paper. With the negative curl I get, it was very fidgety getting things on the paper in any useful way. An actual printing frame would help with that?

Sorry, but I'm terribly new at this and still working through the broad strokes.
 
Get your local window glass shop to cut you a 9x12 piece of 1/4" glass, rounding the corners and edges. The weight of the 1/4" glass will hold everything flat. I usually "dodge and burn in" when I'm making contacts so that all the images are of similar density.

I'm still using Savage glassines for my strips of six negatives. Not archival? I've got lots of negatives nearing fifty years of age that print just fine. I put five strips on a contact sheet.
 
Trius said:
dfoo: You burn or dodge a PROOF? No offense, but wrong.
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Click to expand...

Thats your way, but it doesn't make my way wrong. Clearly I use my contact sheets for a different purpose than you.

BTW, to satisfy my curiosity I made some contacts from bare negatives tonight. They are sharper, and show the negative range more clearly. That being said, I don't think I'll change my working methods in this respect :)
 
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