My habit with making 16x20 prints from 4x5 negs was to use a 10 sheet pack of paper (16x20 Portriga Rapid only came in 10 sheet pkgs). First sheet was the work print. It usually took me about 6 more sheets to get the exposure and burning down. That left 3 sheets to make final copies with. I work slow and thoughtfully, so this was usually a 10 to 12 hour printing session...no breaks.
After I made prints from several negatives, I would then pick two out of the three prints from each negative (so maybe 10 prints or so) and selenium tone them. Dry mount one from each neg and put the rest away.
I have rarely gone back to reprint those negs again. I want to move on to new images rather than reprint.
Now, I do not keep printing notes (but my taking notes are extensive). If I do on the very rare occasion reprint a negative, I want to approach the negative/image as if for the first time...I usually do not even look at existing prints of the image. But I must admit there have been a couple times I have compared the two versions and have tossed out the second set and have had to do make them again. But I am not interested in making carbon-copies.
Maris, terminology is just a tool to grasp what one is doing -- and a poor tool at that. Whatever works for oneself. I take photographs...an activity that can be of spiritual proportions for me. And I loved printing those silver gelatin photographs -- 10 or 12 hours of intense concentration on an image...not always successful, but that is okay.
Now, I approach making platinum prints and carbon prints very differently -- I take the intensity I once spent in the darkroom and channel it while behind the camera, and make "straight" prints. While I never have done lithography or other types of printing processes, I suppose my the way I now work is closer to those arts than I was making silver prints. That is just the way I see it.
Vaughn |