Print Results ~ From Posted Negative

I'm feeling vindicated, having written about scaling a negative by visual inspection, and a good bit of it being theory. Well, some things stand up to reason with enough probing for holes. The newly added variable to the process is this spectral density. I have to say, it's fairly awesome to use, and I'm not sure it even matters exactly which green color, as long as it is a nice forest green, enough that someone who is color blind to green can see it on the screen.

I had sort of calibrated my eye to see a density range commensurate with what I would expect to see on a developed out negative, thick densities, to be able to print long enough under UV to reach dMax and still have highlights. The addition of spectral density changes that. It also seemingly increases the UV resistance of the green increasingly with each increased tonal density. Nothing scientific on my part to check this out specifically, yet having been seeing good results with negatives having extreme densities to get a full range silver print, negatives with an almost normal density range prints well.

This print is the result of printing the negative posted yesterday, 10/7. As I had hoped, the range of the negative has been compacted quite a bit, with the middle tones also greatly enhanced, to arrive at a negative that was visually representative of all the tonal ranges. The image is also copied with a DSLR and prepared to fit on screen and hopefully representative of the original. As close as my eye will allow.

Although I like the finished print, it remains a test print, perhaps an artist's proof to hand on my own wall. The final print will be about 2 minutes longer under the printer light to print in the details of the textural zones. I wanted to see how much dry down there would be on this print. Now I know. Two more minutes would increase detail enough to warrant the extra time. As I had hoped this negative allowed for detail on the top right corner, building top, and on the street in front of the coach. What this digital image isn't showing is the detail on the carriage and around it. What I learned is what those densities look like on a negative now. Now I'm in the sweet spot.

The print is printed on Arches 140 lb, gelatin sized and salted paper (2 1/2% salt), sensitized with (2) coats of saturated silver (13%) and toned in palladium.

"Stagecoach on Main Street" ~ 8"x10"