How do you make extra large B&W prints

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I am interested in making very large B&W prints. I would like to print several large images on a long sheet of paper (perhaps 24" X 60"). Do you know how to process and what kind of paper is available for this type of printing?

-- Lisa Levine (LLevine128@aol.com), December 15, 2000

Answers

Lisa, you don't say what kind of darkroom/enlarger you have. Generally, to make very large prints, you can either tilt the enlarger head horizontally and project on a wall, or unscrew the enlarger column and turn the enlarger around on the baseboard to project onto the floor. If you do that, make sure you put a counterweight on the baseboard.

Processing of long sheets of paper again depends on your set-up. You can make troughs and seesaw the paper through the chemistry, you can get large diameter PVC tubes with caps and roll up the paper, put it in the tube with the bottom capped, pour in the chemistry, cap the top & agitate. Then, if you have a large darkroom sink, you can take the paper out, pour the chemistry from the tube onto the paper and sponge it. That way you make sure you get even coverage with your chemicals.

I have made bunches of 8 foot prints from 35mm negatives that way. It is great fun, but takes a bit of energy and long arms.

Good luck.

chris

-- Christian Harkness (chris.harkness@eudoramail.com), December 15, 2000.


Unless you plan to do a lot of such work, you'll save time and probably money by having a lab do it. Make individual, small prints of your negs, paste them up the way you want them to look, and let the lab tell you what it costs, anyway.

-- Keith Nichols (knichols@iopener.net), December 15, 2000.

I've done multi-panel prints by turning the enlarger head horizontally and projecting onto a wall.

I haven't tried poster-sized sheets myself, but one arrangement I've seen is to develop the prints in long troughs, rolling and unrolling rather than trying to seesaw, which could result in creasing the paper if you lose control.

-- David Goldfarb (dgoldfarb@barnard.edu), December 15, 2000.


Wall paper trays (troughs) available at Lowe's--the heavy duty variety.

-- kirk kennelly (kirk@ioa.com), December 16, 2000.

The largest print I made so far was 0,4 m by 1 m. It was printed from a panorama negative from a Russian Horizon (24 mm x 58 mm). I develop prints like that in a tank I made myself from a 1-metre-long plastic drain pipe with a free diameter of 20 cm (that makes for a largest possible print size of about 62 cm - 2pi times radius - by 1 m). It works fine.

Regards, Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de)

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), December 19, 2000.



I once made an approx 5ft square print with a bessler 23. Used photographic roll paper, two strips next to each other on a wall. Exposed at once, then developed in a largew tray. Eventual outcome? Mounted on the hood of my car :-) Sr. year of High School - print faded very quickly between engine heat and possible inadequate fixing due to size.

-- Alex Wolfe (awolfe_98@yahoo.com), December 21, 2000.

If you can get hold of a copy of "The Print" by Ansel Adams, there is a description of his technique for making very large prints, complete with some phictures of a (very young) John Sexton working the process.

-- Chris Patti (cmpatti@aol.com), December 27, 2000.

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