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> Recapturing the look of the contact print in an enlargement |
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#11
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The critical factor is having the correct amount of information on the film, with a well balanced negative you can print it in quite different ways. But if the information isn't there then you struggle. Discussion of contact prints versus enlargements makes more sense with Large formats but you lose to much information with 35mm contact sheets details are lost. The fact that you are trying an additional diffuser in the enlarger, having to make 1.5 gd contact prints, having difficulty printing, similar issueswith negative scans, all indicate that you haven't got the right balance of EI and devlopment. Nail that and negatives are easy to print. Ian |
#12
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Perhaps it's just that a contact print and the human eye, naked or otherwise, are just incapable of resolving the detail captured in a negative?
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MartyNL “Reaching a creative state of mind thru positive action is considered preferable to waiting for inspiration.” - Minor White, 1950 |
#13
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__________________
MartyNL “Reaching a creative state of mind thru positive action is considered preferable to waiting for inspiration.” - Minor White, 1950 |
#14
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If it is any consolation, Ansel Adams tried to match the look of one of his 10x8 contact prints, with an actual 10X8 print - and failed according to John Sexton.
I am not sure anyone knows exactly why it happens. Martin |
#15
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How did he manage that? 10x8 can't be an enlargement of 10x8; and projecting to the same size sounds iffy at best.
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#16
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If you examine a B&W print very closely through a Loupeyou notice that image sharpness is not as high as the negative sharpness this is because of light diffusion and the lack of an anti-hahaltion layer, contact printing does limit thislight scaterring as can a point source enlarger. Ian |
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#19
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My understanding has changed since I started this thread - the following is what I now understand. It seems that the Callier effect is much more significant in the enlargement than in the contact print. Light is scattered by collision with silver grains, with the result that some never reaches the baseboard. This happens more in the highlights (because there are more silver grains there in the negative) than in the shadows, and therefore highlights print lighter than they should. There is greater loss of light through scattering when using a collimated light beam than with diffuse light, hence the common observation that condenser enlargers give greater contrast (actually exaggerated contrast). [What still puzzles me is why tiny blemishes on the negative are so much more prominent in prints from a condenser enlarger, even within highlight areas?] As far as I understand, all this should also mean that contact prints are less contrasty than enlargements, especially those from condenser enlargers. I have seen the opposite stated many times online, which doesn't make it true of course, but does make me wonder which is right. As already stated, I deliberately print my contacts with slightly softer contrast so that I can see all the information captured in all frames, so I'm in no position to judge. |
#20
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However when it comes to resolving detail, the lens will outperform the eye almost every time. Just this evening I was looking at a print where there appeared to be a smudge on the horizon. I looked at it with a magnifying glass and saw that it was a shrub with no leaves and with all the small branches discernible. Even with reading glasses this made little difference - it took a magnifying lens to do that. Last edited by John King; 24th November 2021 at 09:24 PM. |
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