Printing a (very) thin negative?

[cowanw]

I recommend Kodak Rapid Selenium Toner, unfortunately no longer made, but there is quite a bit about

Do you have a reference for this being discontinued?

[keithwms]

KRST won't do squat for a very thin neg. Neither will chromium (I have some and can attest). Neither is particularly good for "saving" a very thin neg, they will merely make a thin neg more easily printable.

Know the curve; become the curve; use the curve Paper has a narrow range and you'll bang your head against a wall trying to rescue something with that and dektol.

There is a impure, filthy, disgusting, sacreligious, non-analogue solution as well, and I will mention it only once in this analogue forum so pay attention! What you do is scan at the highest bit depth you can, auto-level, inkjet print a positive image to a glossy paper with no watermarks, and contact print that back to film to make a contact-printable enlarged neg.

[John Austin]

Do you have a reference for this being discontinued?

My Australian seller told me it is no longer available, if it is available in Canada or south of the border it will reinforce my belief that Australia is a third world country

Please let me know
John
Quinninup

[tkamiya]

I had what appeared to be very thin negative that actually printed just fine with a grade 2.5 filter. My suggestion is to print as normal and see what it looks like. (shorter exposure time, of course)

Is it thin because it was under exposed or is it because it was under developed? (or both?)

[wblynch]

I have a friend who told me he used to put a blank, developed negative over the thin one to tame it down. He says he got a flatter result and that he had to play with contrast a bit but got the prints.

I haven't done this but he sounded convincing.

[Jon Shiu]

In my experience, the Ilford RC pearl or glossy paper will give a brighter, contrastier print than FB.

Jon

[Oscar Carlsson]

Thanks everyone!

I think that grade 5, a careful straight print and some dodging/burning is the way to go. Sadly I don't have access to any bleach and the negative isn't mine, so intensification is not really an option. Maybe it's time to read some more on bleach however, is it tricky to put together with household chemicals or should I go for more commercial alternatives?

Edit: As for the negative - it's severely underdeveloped (we tried developing two tanks with the same caffenol in the same sitting, the first negatives came out too dense but printable and the second batch came out almost blank) but I think it's decently exposed. I remember we used the same exposure and the day was overcast and gray, and my negatives came out dense but printable and a few of them printed beautifully on an old glossy Orwo-paper I found in the darkroom.

[Doremus Scudder]

Oscar,

Severely underdeveloped means low contrast. Shadow detail should be less affected, however. Check your shadows to see if there is detail there. Even if the underdevelopment slowed the film way down, you need to build contrast. Here's what I'd try:

First, even before trying to print with grade 5, I'd bleach and redevelop in a staining developer. That means using a rehalogenating bleach (I use potassium ferrocyanide and potassium bromide), and bleaching the image away. The image silver turns to silver bromide, which can then be redeveloped. Using a staining developer like PMK for the redevelopment will add an additional stain image to the silver one there already, thereby increasing contrast and adding a bit of detail to the shadows. I've used this with good results in the past. I know you don't have bleach, but the above works well and is easy. Read up on it if you are interested.

Toning the negative in selenium toner will give you about half a grade of contrast increase. It will also make bleach-redevelopment impossible, so it's one or the other, since toning a stained neg in selenium removes the stain... Anyway, KRST 1:2 for about 5 minutes should do the trick.

Then, grade 5,and the contrastiest light source you can find. If you're using diffusion, try a condenser enlarger. Use your Dektol straight. All this will help you build contrast.

If none of this works, maybe it's not worth it. If it is, then I'd go to hybrid next...

An interneg is also a possibility. You can contact print onto film or paper and see what you get by varying development times. Unfortunately, if there is no shadow detail, you really can't save what's not there.

Hope this helps some,

Doremus

www.DoremusScudder.com

[cowanw]

My Australian seller told me it is no longer available, if it is available in Canada or south of the border it will reinforce my belief that Australia is a third world country

Please let me know
John
Quinninup

As you said there is lots available. And there is nothing on the web or at Kodak about discontinueings. Maybe your dealer was confusing toners