Hi everybody. Just a question about printing B&W prints from colour negs. Yeah, I know its the wrong way of going about it but have an idea for a project, but all I have for it is 10 year colour negs and am not able to get anything else. I am interested in what people have to say about paper/developer/toning combinations and any secrets in using this filthy colour stuff. Much regards, Patrick.

-- Patrick Doyle (k1wone@hotmail.com), April 24, 2002

Answers

I did a lot of this years ago, and the only way to get proper tonal rendition is to use Kodak's Panalure, which is sensitive to all colors of light. Be careful to open and use it in total darkness. I found Grade 3 to be most suitable to my needs.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edb@unblinkingeye.com), April 24, 2002.

Patrick, I use Panalure.....it doesn't come in graded numbers though, but rather in L (low), M (medium), and H (high)...it's like a color paper, so you have to handle it in near-darkness. I use it with a print processor though, so I really use it in darkness....it's an rc based, developer incorporated paper, so it's pretty easy to process in a tray as well.

Panalure can be funky to use though, getting a good match with certain types of color negs can be tough sometimes....you can use just about any enlarger that you'd use for b&w (no cold heads, though), but it would help *alot* if you have either a set of CP filters for a condenser enlarger, or a color head. The reason why is that you can alter the separation of tones with the filters just like you would when shooting a panchromatic b&w film more or less. Since you have such limited contrast control with panalure, this is the way you do it. You can also raise the contrast by a half grade more or less, by using the cyan filters....in my experience, this does work, BUT it also tends to make the image a bit grainy.

I mostly use the M grade for general work. I use a color head as well...there have been occasions where I have had to use a second enlarger to set up a flash of the paper to knock down the contrast....you might have to resort to this for certain types of negs. You don't need much though, you just want to knock the highligts down a tiny bit....

You can try to use regular b&w papers, but they will never render the tones accurately...I have used Multigrade III and IV a bit for this in the past as well, and handle it by really increasing the contrast...like a 3.5 or higher. Color negs can become really grainy when printed on regular papers like this though, and the tones can get weird...panalure is the best way to go, but using it is not exactly easy sometimes....hope this helps, btw Panalure is tough to find sometimes, you might have to order it....

-- dk thompson (kthompson@moh.dcr.state.nc.us), April 24, 2002.

Patrick; These days the best and really only way is to have the old neg scanned, then take all the colour out using software such as Photshop or any image manipulator, then print it on an inkjet printer or take the file to a shop that uses a Fuji Frontier machine and have them make you a B&W print from the digital file. This will give much superior results to messing saround with Panalure.

OR, go to a good pro lab and have them print it on the new RA4 B&W paper they use for printing from C-41 B&W negs.

Good luck.

-- richard ilomaki (richard.ilomaki@fmglobal.com), April 24, 2002.

Thanks for your input, I'm going to have a think about it and see what fate befalls me.

-- Patrick (k1wone@hotmail.com), April 27, 2002.

You can try printing on regular black & white paper (a higher contrast paper is best). Just be sure to start with more contrast (3 1/2 filter or 4 filter), which is similar to printing C41 processed B&W film. Experiment with toners, etc. You might print something you like without having to use paper that is incompatible with a regular safelight.

-- Jim Rock (jameswrock@aol.com), April 27, 2002.

I know this answer is a bit late, but this could help. A lot of my portfolio is color neg printed on black and white paper. When I was shooting for newspapers, all of my film was color neg, but a lot of the time I wanted my stories in black and white for my book. I think it's just an old myth that it can't be done. Initially most of my printing done on Ilford RC paper, generally the Pearl surface. Using either the Ilford developer or Dektol. Since then I've printed plenty of times on other papers as well, including Ilford fiber matt, and the Zone VI glossy, both of which work fine. I don't know if it makes a difference, but my enlarger has a color head, and I dial in the filtration with the Magenta channel. I have found that color negs shot in daylight seem to print a lot better than film shot under artificial light. Exposures are definitely longer than with black and white negs.

-- David Surowiecki (david@surow.net), May 13, 2002.

"I think it's just an old myth that it can't be done." This statement is neither true or myth. It can be done with a large distortion in spectral sensitivity unless you use Panalure paper, which is a panchromatic b&w paper, and probaly only such paper readily available. Multigrade paper might be somewhat better than graded varieties but still lots of distortion in overall spectral sensitivity.

-- Ryuji Suzuki (rsuzuki@rs.cncdsl.com), May 13, 2002.