New negative ~ Visual Scaling

I have begun altering my approach to scaling the digital negative for printing. As I move through the testing phase of negative densities and use of spectral density, two things have become clear to me in controlling the print. First, the use of green toned negatives as the optimal spectral density works, well. Secondly, the density range of the image doesn't have to be increased all that much.

There is a sort of quasi relationship between the spectral green and how it translates for each density range. What I am seeing is the green retards UV light, in proportion to the tonal density, with an increase in retardation as the negatives densities increase. The same green tone is going to retard the Zone 7 density more than it will the Zone 2 density. That has shown me that the really dense negatives I started out making are no longer needed now that I use spectral density for better print time using the Solar Printer. The green tone setting PJ and I have been using on our negatives has returned about a ten minute print time addition to the negative, otherwise. The sweet spot for printing for me is from about 8-12 minutes for silver based printing; salt paper, Kallitype, etc.

The new negative can be seen to have much more texture showing in the middle tones as well as highlights, where only near black showed before. This will be the revised negative I will be printing tomorrow, for comparative analysis to the original, and between the prints. I am having to retrain my eye to recognize the tonal densities of a negative by looking at the negative of the image. I know that can be done, and was.

"Stagecoach on Main Street" ~ Original Negative

Top right corner too dense to see building. Street density too dense to see any detail. Under belly of horses and carriage show very low densities, which translated to black in the print. There was a tinme when my eye wanted to see very strong differences between tonal ranges. I'm learning that this need not be the case.







 "Stagecoach on Main Street" ~ New Negative
The highlight densities have been reduced a lot here, Shadow detail, as in street, building behind stagecoach, carriage and horses all show more gradation of tones, less stark differences. The middle tones have been favored, with the driver's shirt sleeve and roadway the densest tones. This negative should print as nicely as it looks. Now my eye is seeing the more subtle tonal differences, and allowing the green tone of the spectral density to handle print time. The longer print time means more silver melted on the print paper, better dMax and longer tonal range on the print.

The newer version of this image was done with me setting the densities by visual inspection, instead of relying upon a global application of setting density. I still believe that if we are to rely upon digital negatives for printing, we should also be able to control how each negative prints, and that means shaping the image by setting up the density range, for that image. Not all images are not going to be alike in mood or lighting condition. Creating a density range that creates the optimal effect for each image would be the goal. But that's just me. We'll soon see how this negative prints.