I took a course many years ago and have retained quite a bit except for how to make a contact sheet to preview your film. Could someone explain this to me one more time.

Thanks,

Robin

-- Anonymous, April 14, 1997

Answers

Robin, put your negatives in direct contact with the sheet of enlarging paper, under a piece of glass to weight it down and insure flat & full contace. Place this under the enlarger, with the head at a distance far enough away to give an even spread of light. Expose for the time it takes to get the clear neg area to just match the maximum paper black, and you are there. If you want projection proof, a 'contact sheet' of 35mm images approx 'wallet' size. Use a glass negative carrier on a 4x5 or bigger enlarger. Put in the page of negs, masked to project 9 frames (or more) at a time. Then project them just as you would a standard enlargement. This gives 9 frames per 8x or 8 1/2 x 11, projected on the paper and clients not familiar with contact sheets can view the 'mini enlarlgements' while still having the frame numbers, direct comparisons and the whold job in front of them. If you have an 8x10 or bigger enlarger, project the whole page of negs at once, whatever the format, on 11x14 or 16 x 20 paper, and hand your client an impressive 'projection proof' sheet. Then, you can mount, matt & frame it and increase sales by charging for an extra 'custom print' of the whole roll of film. It works well and if you are a good shooter can be quite impressive for a client to have on the wall. Models especially seem to love it as it gives a big print of a whole series of poses with a lot of feedback on how they "really look" during a shoot. If you want to be creative, you can take the frame or two they liked best, mask everything else off with a surface protectant and sepia tone, hand color, etc. just those few that were chosen. It is a big boost to them as it shows off what they feel is best. If you see one of these 16x20 enlarged contacts on a wall with good matting & framing it will always attract attention and will bring in business from a lot of other models & some new clients as few offer these prints. Good luck to you.

-- Anonymous, April 15, 1997

If you want to make an "Exposure corrected" contact sheet then it is pretty easy. Like above suggestion, place the enlarger so you get an even amount of light accross an area big enough for the 8x10 sheet of paper. Mark the HIEGHT and fstop on the enlarging lens so this is repeatable.

Now take a negative and make a print of the blank (black on the paper, clear on negative) space BETWEEN the lines, using a cardboard sheet and as a mask, one second intervals, I usually do 20 seconds worth. This tells you how many seconds you need to get pure BLACK through the clear part of a neg. (If you do not get to pure black open up a stop and try again.) I usually print mine at the time one second before pure black.

Make sure that you have the negative carrier in place when you make your exposure. You should do this test for EVERY different film type you use, because the clear bas is a little different in all of them....

-- Anonymous, April 28, 1997

contactsheets

why bother, you can not evaluate neg from a contactsheet, put the negs in a transparant sheet, and with a lense whits enlarge about 10 times, if possible take a hasselblad focus unit and look carefully throug your negs an writhe down the negs you want to use, in the future, get used to evaluede you negs its the only way to know wat your neg are worth, contact sheet, willsheet you for a lot of good pictures.

-- Anonymous, May 30, 1997