Properly developed negatives

[dancqu]

That tip about holding your neg in front of a blank document
in your work processor in lieu of a light box ... genius!

That's nothing. I've a not very high overhead light which strikes
a reading level white papered surface. Wearing a visor will
reduce glare. No word processor needed. Dan

[Keith Tapscott.]

For me, a properly exposed and developed neg is one that prints properly on a #2 paper for the minimum exposure in the enlarger which, through clear film,produces the maximum black thepaper and film developer can produce--not necessarilly one that looks a certain way on the light box.
As for the purple tint, try refixing and rewashing the negs. Oh, and in lieu of a fancy light box, just go to your word processing program, open a blank page, and use that as a standard for viewing your negs. Keep at it. You' soon get the hang of it.

I agree, it`s not how a negative looks, but how well it prints that matters.

[MattKing]

Gary:

I've started to wonder whether we all might be misunderstanding what you are asking.

I think most of the answers in this thread are directed to evaluating how well exposed and developed your fim is, with a view to how well your shots can be printed.

I'm wondering whether your question is more to do with the overall appearance of the developed film - not how printable the negatives are, but instead whether they just look generally like properly developed negatives.

I have a feeling that you are expecting to see something like the results you would get with high contrast lithographers' film - stark, clearly visible images, rather than the subtle range of tones one sees in a normal continuous tone negative.

I don't know whether you have visited Jason Brunner's website (he is both a moderator and an advertiser here) but he has links there to a number of how to videos posted on YouTube. Here is a link to his site:

http://www.jasonbrunner.com/videos.html

I'd suggest watching all the videos there. In particular, I'd suggest viewing "Developing Roll Film Pt4". At about 6 minutes and again at about 7 1/2 minutes into that video, you will see Jason holding up some freshly developed 120 B & W film. Those negatives look well exposed and well developed to me. They are of course larger than 35mm film, and they have no sprocket holes, but I think that what you see there may help answer your concerns.

Hope this helps.

Matt