This is another of those perverse topic of mixing analog and digital in photography. Occasionally I will have a photo that I want to print that is not in the form of a B+W negative. If it is a color negative then that has worked out OK. For instance I have taken this photo as a color negative and printed it with little difficulty.
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| Color Negative (Kodak Porta 400) |
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| Positive Image (Photoshop) |
The negatives I merely printed directly in the enlarger of Ilford MGIV RC De Luxe Paper.
The result is here...
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| B+W RC Print |
It becomes more difficult from a positive slide film image. Here an inter-negative must be produced. In this blog entry (
Paper Inter-Negative Anza-Borrego) I show one traditional way of achieving a B+W print from a color slide. Clearly this is time consuming but satisfying in the purity of the treatment (all analog).
It is more difficult if you have a photo taken on a digital camera. I have tried tried making a digital negative from my ink-jet printer. This is time consuming in the beginning owing to the need to calibrate your printer gamma. (
An example here...) It is also expensive with quality ink-jet transparency media at £1.00 or more a sheet and ink costs. Expect to go through a few sheets before you get a satisfactory result. My experience also showed the need to use a contact print. I tried a 6x6 negative in my enlarger from ink-jet but the media had visible inconsistencies not present in a contact print. Hence an 8x10 consumes an A4 sheet. I also found myself trying to decide if the negative should be improved or the print. For better or worse a developed negative is pretty much a fixed variable and so less confusing. The ink-jet method is obviously successful when printing in a process that requires a contact print like most UV-based processes. However a standard enlarger with MG paper should be simpler.
I had noticed some services that offered to take digital files and reduce them to film. I found a number of services, three of which I mention below.
1)
Gamma-Tech offers the most robust services. Color or B+W and 35mm to 8x10. 35mm seems economical at $4.00 each and medium format jumps to $10.00 each. They have 4K pixels (long edge) for 35mm and 8K or 16K for medium format. I did not try them due to expense and they are in the US and I am in the UK.
2)
DigitalSlides- These are local for me and were very economical. They only offer 35mm and apparently only slides. They are however only £1.50 each for 8K slides. I sent B+W negative images as JPEGs and asked they be imaged that way. I didn't expect much as I thought I would get B+W on a color slide and lose some contrast and perhaps get a color shift or tinge. I received a sleeve of B+W negatives on what looks to be Konica R100 color slide film.It has slight purplish tinge further indicating it is the expected color image.
3)
FirstCall Photographic-I have used these guys for some time for supplies, film , and equipment. They offer a service to put digital to film. They will image a 35mm roll of Ilford Pan 100 for £22.50 a roll (up to 36 images) which is very economical when you want to order in bulk. You must develop the film yourself but this gives you extra latitude if you like the characteristics of a particular developer. I submitted a CD of negative images, paid my £22.50 and received back a roll of 100 PanF film with
positive images on it. They were exceedingly dark but that could be my developing. I was confused to receive the positive images so I wrote back. I could not find any instructions about what type of images to send. They explained that in seven years I was the first customer to send negative images. They said I could submit them again at full charge if I wanted. I declined and will not be doing business (any) with them again. Basically I was stupid. Needless to say I can't use the images I got from them.
The first example here is the DigitalSlides outfit.
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| Low Resolution Contact Print (Positive) |
One print I attempted an ink-jet digital negative from was a photo my son took with his Canon DSLR. The photo is of the inside of an old barn. The lighting is difficult and it was captured as follows.
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| Original Canon DSLR Photo (Positive) |
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| Original DSLR Histogram |
The histogram shows the left side distribution (underexposed) consistent with dark interior and the metering trying to makes sense of the bright light through the doorways (overexposed).
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| Scan of DigitalSlides Film (Positive) |
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| Film Histogram |
Clearly some processing was done to the image. I presume it came from the SW that printed to the film to map it to the gamma of the film.
I also had them print the Smoke Tree
Paper Inter-Negative Anza-Borrego image to film and printed that image and the best result I got was. All printed on Ilford MGIV RC Deluxe.
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