Having now begun revisiting the arena of reading negatives, along with adding spectral density into the mix, I am coming to read so much better now. When I began this process some weeks ago, and without all the equipment I have now, I was working to build sufficient ink density on the acetate sheet to actually represent a true Zone 7 & 8. Turns out, I learned that particular lesson at the same time I came to grasp the spectral density's part to play in the process. This process is ongoing, and a collaboration with PJ (McArdle) who founded and created the darkroom photographers group, and where my printing is currently done, until my own printing room is done.
We have been developing a sort of hybrid of Dan Burkholder's procedural methodology in preparing a digital negative for printing in hand coated processes. His method works well, by the way, as he has demonstrated. What I am personally after is manipulating certain areas of the negative, representing certainly tonal ranges, for better texture and detail in the print as well as optimal tonal separation, using the longest density scale possible. I believe we stumbled onto that procedure this morning. I am not able to tell you what that was simply because I haven't a clue what he did. What I saw... was certainly not intuitive. I do not have Photoshop. I do have Corel Paintshop Pro which is Photoshop designed for photography. I will be trying to do what he did, then I can talk about it, as I will have some sort of structure to describe.
The simple of it is this, using hue/color slides in the menu, for a black and white negative image, sections of tonal ranges began changing their density, based upon hue assignment. Somehow it is seeing what had been the color assignments, no clue. The outcome was that the section controlling the sky and clouds set that up with a matching density range of the house with a Zone 7 density. The Cyan slide pulled up a Zone 3 area of a large field of grasses, to Zone 4, and so on. It appears that when the density increases or decreases, the amount of green tone followed suit, which would further separate the two tonal ranges just achieved. That negative now represents what would have been magic thirty years ago. If this method is a functional as it appears visually at this time, I will document it fully and writing about it. Grasping the digital aspect is certainly a weak spot for me.
On the way to print today, I needed to pick up a sheet of Arches Platine so I could print this new, most excellent negative. In a town(?) of a million people, not one art store has a single sheet of that paper, or anything equivalent. So, the printing session is off until my online order of a new equivalent of Arches Platine arrives. Revere Platinum paper, sold by Bostick & Sullivan, is less than half the cost of Platine, with the company's tag next to said paper, it is becoming the preferred paper for alternative process printers. This is very promising. It is of the same weight and dimensions, and is also sized, being made for hand coated printing. I will certainly be writing about that when it arrives.
I recently scanned two old 5x7 negatives that were still taped to the printing masks I used for printing a gum. They are of the upper Sonoran Desert in Arizona, taken circa 1986 during a family visit I made with my two offspring at the time. I had brought along my Burke & James 5x7 flat bed view camera, with all the stuff that goes with such a rig. That was also the year I captured the inside of Paul & Jerry's Bar in Jerome, Arizona, with recognizable old timers at the bar. Soon, that will be printed as an 8x10 in palladium. The image below is one I printed in gum, back then. This time around I will print it in both gum and silver to palladium.
Salted Silver Print ~ "Desert Mesas"
1986 ~ 5"x7" ~ Unique
Upper Sonoran Desert, Arizona
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