'Ragged' black borders on 35mm prints

L

Lilserenity

Well-known
Local time
12:04 PM
Joined
Aug 21, 2008
Messages
1,031
Hiya,

Relatively speaking I think I'm still a fairly young (though knocking on a bit now what my my 26th this week, pass me the walking stick ;)) avid darkroom 'user' what with my bathroom doing a fine double act.

To say I have mastered it would be one fat lie and I'll need a lot more years on the clock before I come even within a sniff of being good at it. I take the view that some people specialise in printing and become a master at it, whereas some stunning photographers I read about or know in person don't do their own prints.

The one thing I can't quite get my head around is doing ragged borders on my prints. (I'll try to find some examples on Flickr so you can see what I mean)

People have suggested filing out the neg carrier but that would mean I'd need to print the entire 35mm frame and I might not want the ragged look on all of them (that latter bit can be gotten around appreciably), but often with papers not being 3:2 ratio I am cropping straight away so I'd loose the ragged border on at very least one edge.

I was wondering what other techniques there might be. I've tried doing some searching but all I can turn up is how to do it in Photoshop.

I do have two enlargers, an Opemus 5 which I don't use as the glass carrier seems to be scratched and I personally cannot stand the negative carrier, and an Axomat 5 which whilst it has a cheap as chips plastic carrier, it does hold negatives flat and there is no glass to get dusty.

I have some landscapes to print on some nice MGIV FB Warmtone and I can visualise them working nicely with a ragged black border.

Thanks!
Vicky
 
Dear Vicky,

Filing it out is how you do it. That's the original point of filing out: to display the 'integrity' of your pictures by showing they're not cropped. Nonsense, of course, but there you go.

Cheers,

Roger
 
Last edited:
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Vicky,

Filing it out is how you do it. That's the original point of filing out: to display the 'integrity' of your pictures by shwong they're not cropped. Nonsense, of course, but there you go.

Cheers,

Roger
Click to expand...

Curious indeed. Think I need to stick to plain black borders then in that case.

Thanks! :)
Vicky
 
Unless the opening in your neg carrier is larger than the image area on the neg, you'll still have to file out the carrier to get "plain" (or thin) black borders. Every carrier I have ever seen has an opening slightly smaller than the neg's image area.
 
I filed down the negative carrier on my enlarger right after using it. I used a 24mm lens on my Nikon F2, and found that it made a slightly larger image on the negative than the normal lenses. I wanted ALL of the wide-angle image- so out with the file.

Basically, the wide-angle lenses can "sneak around" the shutter and produce a larger image on the negative.
 
I saw people printing the frame numbers and sprockets at SF Open Studios and thought it was kind of cool. I did that for a while but then preferred the clean look of a matted print. I thought the foolishness took attention away from the picture.
 
To get really clean black borders my negtive carrier is filed out and I use a Saunders four bladed easel so the image can be centered on the paper.

Lately I've been scanning old contact sheets and cropping and posting individual frames or groups of frames on my blog http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com
 
Last edited:
I recently saw a photo exhibition of many famous photos of various rock stars, by many famous photographers such as Ralph Gibson. I was surprised at the number of prints that had ragged borders, or showed the film rebate. Many of the prints were also quite big, and very sharp! I never printed any of my images with the rebate, but after seeing these prints I must admit it looked cool :)
 
I like the look myself, though it's not something I'd want on every print I made.
Why not just a get a second negative carrier and file that one? They have to be pretty cheap these days.
But of course, if you are using an adjustable printing easel, you can always crop out the ragged edges whenever you like.
 
It's also possible to print black borders, ratty edge or not, on cropped prints. With digital this is EXTREMELY easy.

A fair amount of pros and seious amateurs used to file notches into the camera's film gate. The negatives would have little "bumps" on the edge. By looking at the negative, contact sheet, or full frame black bordered print you could tell which of several bodies shot that roll, or which photographer.
 
I have several negative carriers with filed edges, which I most often use for printing with a fine black line around the image. Some images benefit from a black border, others do not, just as some images benefit from the 'ragged border' (I've always thought of it as a 'sloppy border'). I find a black border can create shapes of white or light areas in the image, when no border seems to make an image that floats away at times. I consider this j another tool in the darkroom. I do quite like the slightly rounded corners I get from a full frame with black border image. The thin black border is easy enough to do even on cropped negs with some black card and either a very long exposure, some help from a flashlight or a second exposure with the negative removed.

Al Kaplan said:
... file notches into the camera's film gate. The negatives would have little "bumps" on the edge...
Click to expand...

My 4x5 & 810 holders are like this, made tracking down a bad darkslide or felt very easy.
 
Last edited:
I'm not sure about ragged borders--not sure I've ever seen one. But for awhile some people were posting shots with a sort of free-form border: straight on the edge that borders on the picture, and kind of wavy on the outside edge. I don't know how they did that, but I don't think it could be done by filing the carrier. Maybe it was added digitally just for posting on the web.

I agree that using a four bladed easel is all it takes when a print with clean edges is desired.
 
Take a look here:

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/photoschool/ps art.html

The first (temple) is from 44x66 Alpa, with rebate showing Alpa machining notches

The second (colony planets) is a filed 35 carrier

The third (tankard) is a 4x5 POP print with rebates

The fourth (Prague) and fifth (re-enactor) are clean-edge scans from a tranny

The sixth (waterfall) is filed carrier again
.
.
.
And the last, 'Broken Treasures II' is hand-coated paper

There are no rules. You can do whatever you like. Don't expect everyone to agree with everything you do -- but equally, when they criticise, as yourself whether they may have a particular reason for thinking a particular way, as discussed here:

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/photoschool/ps critique.html

Cheers,

R.
 
Mr. Hicks is, as usual, cogent.

The original intent behind the rebate, as I understand it, was to demonstrate that all the original image is being presented i.e. no cropping has comprimised the image or, latterly, the photographer's vision. Like many things, a signifyer of authenicity has been appropriated for its "look".

yours
FPJ
 
I still rather like a thin, irregular black border, if it was naturally left there by the carrier, scanner, or whatever. It's kind of interesting to see what artifacts the medium leaves--I am the kind of viewer who enjoys contemplating the process. I'm not a big fan of photoshopping that stuff in, but sometimes the effect is kind of neat.
 
3620204900_c8be5f73e2_b.jpg
 
Previous shot was enlarged with a Focomat IIc with a filed out carrier and then framed with a Leitz easel. Then, the print was scanned and retouched a bit in photoshop. I miss those 'real' black borders in digital photography.

Erik.
 
In school, because they would not let us file out their negative carriers, I traced one out on a piece of black matte board. I then cut a hole in it slightly larger than the opening in the metal neg carrier. It's a cheap DIY way to get your carrier filed out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom