Contact sheet factory?

[BobNewYork]

Boring as it is I always make contact sheets. I've never developed (pardon the pun !) the ability to read negatives - other than in a very sense, and I find that the contact sheets lead me to the negs worth exploring further.

The other reason I contact is to tell me if there's anything changed in the materials or in my technique. Negs that don't print well at the contact stage are usually not worth pursuing further and also highlight for me any problems in my metering for a particular situation. In many respects the contact sheet is like a control strip for the entire process.

Bob H

[clayne]

But not as fun, imho.

IMO, the lightbox and loupe with a contact sheet are like a little miniature world where you follow the storyline of the roll... Scanning and looking at it on a monitor, no thanks, personally.

[bobherbst]

If you want to evaluate a negative, use an eye loupe. If you want to evaluate an IMAGE, you need to see it as a positive. That's what a contact sheet/proof is all about.


IMO, the lightbox and loupe with a contact sheet are like a little miniature world where you follow the storyline of the roll... Scanning and looking at it on a monitor, no thanks, personally.

[DLawson]

If you want to evaluate a negative, use an eye loupe. If you want to evaluate an IMAGE, you need to see it as a positive. That's what a contact sheet/proof is all about.

Well, for you (and me too, admittedly), sure that's true. But this sounds like telling large format people that they can't judge an image upside down.

Once upon a time, I recall being pretty good at judging image content (at a news/yearbook level) pretty well from a negative. So I'm inclined to believe (with envy) those who say they can read the full image by viewing the negative.

Still, I'll be making contact sheets this weekend, and probably for a very long time to come.

[clayne]

If you want to evaluate a negative, use an eye loupe. If you want to evaluate an IMAGE, you need to see it as a positive. That's what a contact sheet/proof is all about.

Bob, yes - I agree. That's what I was pointing out about rationale behind contacts rather than judging negatives. I don't look at negatives under a loupe, I look at contacts. Occasionally I look at negatives for damage and other obvious issues - but not for evaluation of content.

[WarEaglemtn]

Shoot 5x7 or larger and the contact sheet, done well, can be your final image. Whether you use Michael A. Smiths Lodima, a normal silver printing paper or Alt Processes you have the size figured out and printing is the next natural step. Then mount, mat and you are through.

[dfoo]

I love my contacts, but they're a pain in the ass to create :) Lately I've been doing nothing but print contact sheets, but now I have a nice set to examine, and show my friends and relatives. The sheets quite often tell a real story... much better than showing a negative to my sister. "Looks great! (not)".

[mcfactor]

Yeah, i felt like a contact sheet factory on Monday when I made over 50 contact sheets in a 2 hour period. I was doing 4 sheets at a time. I had been traveling a lot this fall and had a ridiculous amount of film that I am almost finished developing.

Although they are tedious and time-consuming, i often notice things on contact sheets that I miss when viewing the negative. Things also look different in positive form, so things that might not look great in negative do in positive and vise-versa. They also help me to view all the work I have done in a timely manner; I don't have to spend time trying to imagine what it will look like as a positive.

[perkeleellinen]

50 contact sheets in 2 hours is good going! That's like mass production.

[mcfactor]

yeah, the only problem was I had to dry them in shifts, I only have enough space for about 30 prints

[sanking]

I am not able to evaluate the potential print quality from a negative so I have always made contact sheets. In the old days I made them in the darkroom. A number of years ago I switched to digital contact sheets. With ULF negatives I shoot them over a light box with a digital camera, one at a time. With MF and 5X7 film I put the negatives in Print File pages and scan the pages, at 600 dpi. I save these pages just as one would save a printed contact sheet. If I want to evaluate the potential of any given negative I open the page in Photoshop, select the image to be evaluated, and apply various tonal corrections to see how it will print. I find this procedure saves much time over making contact prints in the darkroom, and also gives me a lot more information to work with in evaluating how to best print the negative.

Sandy King

[Andrew O'Neill]

With ULF negatives I shoot them over a light box with a digital camera, one at a time.

That's what I do too but with 4x5 and 8x10 negatives and only the ones that have passed my "this has potential" step.

I have enough years of experience in the darkroom to evaluate without making contact sheets. For me, photo paper is a precious commodity and I'm on a tight budget as my wife keeps reminding me.

[sepiareverb]

I've found myself making contact sheets pretty regularly for the last few years, since returning to 35mm from 810. When looking back for something going through a notebook of contacts is way faster than trying to go through a notebook of negatives. I'm wishing I had proofsheets of more negative books.

[brianmquinn]

I also scan my negatives and print out injet contact sheets. It is good to keep track of negatives. I can also play around with contrast, tone and cropping to see what I like before heading off to the wet darkroom to acutually make the prints. I also like that I can email soft proofs so that the "client" can pick out what they like.

[TimVermont]

I have two projects this Autumn. First, make sense of my equipment and supplies, getting rid of what I don't need. Second, make contact sheets of all my past work that I haven't contacted yet. Just opened my third 250 sheet box of printing paper. It is tedious work, but I'm hoping that the first 500 were the hardest..........