I have been thinking of scanning my 8x10 negs to produce large digital negatives that I can contact print. I have read that printing this way, will give me sharper results than going through an enlarger (and I can easily remove dust spots and do my masking in Photoshop). I was wondering if anyone has any experiance with this in terms of results they are getting, what to watch for, where to get these negatives made and what file resolutions are required. I do have friends in the offset printing business who can output stochastic film. This may be the route that I will take, however, their maximum size is 20x30 and I was hoping to get at least 40" wide!

Thanks for your time.

Dave.

-- dave (daveanton@shaw.ca), January 23, 2002

Answers

If you have an 8x10 enlarger you can make a direct enlargement. check out Ed Buffaloe's site (www.unblikingeye.com) and there is an article there on making direct negatives from a negative using a reversal process. If Ed has removed it e mail me and I will send it to you. ONTH I think a drum scan of an 8x10 is going to cost you around 50 bucks, and any flat bed scanner will not have the same quality for the type of priting I think you want. Good luck.

-- Jorge Gasteazoro (jorgegm58@prodigy.net.mx), January 23, 2002.

Jorge, I would rather go through the digital process to produce my negative as I want to clean it and manipulate it digitally before making my negative. I think you are right in using a drum scanner. That will be the direction I will have to take. The idea was to produce a large "manipulated negative" that can be contact printed onto FB roll-paper instead of enlarging it. I have many of these to print and I am hoping this process will make my printing a little easier.

-- Dave (daveanton@shaw.ca), January 23, 2002.

Dave, if you really wish to go this way then the only resource I can give you is Dan Burkholder, I am good friends with him and I have seen his negatives, they are absolutely wonderful! Done the same way you are thinking, so I guess his book would be a good way to go since he also uses the stochastic method to distribute grain. On the Jan/feb issue of phototechniques magazine he has an article where I belive he is also talking about making negatives with a printer, but I am not absolutely sure. OTH I have seen some silver prints of him made with a digitally enlarged and manipulated negative that looked stunning so if you are doing silver prints dont let the fact that he does pt/pd discourage you since he also demonstrates curves for negatives used for silver printing. I wish you success...

-- Jorge Gasteazoro (jorgegm58@prodigy.net.mx), January 23, 2002.

There is a lengthy (21 pages) article on the web by the very fine photographer David Fokos, entitled How To Make Digital Negatives For Black & White Fine-Art Photographs - or, how I stopped worrying and learned to love Photoshop. It is at http://members.home.net/hmpi/Misc/Making/making/htm

The article was posted in August 1997 but still is a very valuable source of information. In the article Fokos refers to his book on the subject but I have not come across it.

Alan Shapiro

-- Alan Shapiro (ashapiro@yorku.ca), January 23, 2002.

The link above didn't work for me...try this one:

http://www.world-photonet.com/newsletter/1999/January/fokos.htm

-- Don Sparks (harleyman7@aol.com), January 24, 2002.

Get the Burkholder book, and study how to do it. There is not that much difference between the Fokos and Burkholder methods. Either one will get you there. I am in the process of going through this process for platinum prints.

Scanning negs is OK. If you get a pretty good flatbed scanner you should be able to go from 8 x 10 to 32 x 40 without too much of a problem. You may have to spend big bucks on the scanner that will have a transparency unit that will handle an 8 x 10 negative. I am scanning 4 x 5 negatives and it can be done on relatively inexpensive machines. Information on scanning and negative resolutions and file size is given by both Fokos and Burkholder.

If you have friends in the graphic arts who can output film (and more importantly, help you analyze your test negatives), then you should be OK. I have found that the only problem is the resolution of the imagesetter. Where I live, very few imagesetters want to work beyond 2400 dpi.

The transfer curve is much, much more important than either author says, and it is very much geared to you. Burkholder has a curve, Fokos has a curve. They will not work for you. You must develop your own curve. It is sensitive to paper, developer, type of contact printing frame (you will need one - at 20 x 30, you probably need to think vaccuum easel) and just about any other variable you might care to introduce into your printing process. Getting my personal curve correct is (currently) a very vexing issue. But I know I will get it down, and be able to use this technology.

Good luck!

-- Joe Lipka (joelipka@earthlink.net), January 24, 2002.

Thanks to everyone for responding. Thanks Don for the link, it is incredibly valuable. I have researched this process since I posted this thread and I'm very excited about my findings.

Joe, you are right about the 2400dpi from printers, I have been told the same. However, after pressing them a bit, I have found that they have the capability of printing the film at a much higher setting as the machines are generally quite current, but they hesitate because it disrupts their production. I hope I get lucky with someone:)

-- Dave (daveanton@shaw.ca), January 24, 2002.