Unsharp Masking of Negatives?

[wildbill]

I received John Sexton's latest book "Recollections" for Christmas. The images, for the most part are very sharp. I don't know how much he uses usm but the images in the book appear a fair amount sharper than most of my 4x5 enlargements.

vinny

[mmcclellan]

Here is a link to Radek Photography that has a lot of info, including masking kits you can purchase. I first heard of Lynn Radek from Bruce Barnbaum's book, "The Art of Photography," in which Barnbaum goes into this technique in some detail and recommends the Radek masking kit. Anyway, surf his website and you can see examples of how the technique affects prints, workshops, etc.

http://www.radekaphotography.com/maskingkits.htm

[Loren Sattler]

Anyone that has taken a workshop from Howard Bond on printing has learned a little something about the value of unsharp masking for enhancing apparent print sharpness. Howard is a master photographer and printer. He taught workshops for the zone system, large format photography, basic and advanced printing and unsharp masking for many years. Recently he claims to have given his last workshop.

When taking a printing workshop much time is spent looking at fine prints as a learning tool. In these studies Howard shows you prints developed years ago conventionally next to more recent prints using unsharp masks. There is a noticeable improvement in sharpness. These are all prints from large format negatives, many of them 4 x 5's.

For many years Howard has published technical articles in Photo Techniques magazine. As an enhancement to his teaching, he would provide a copy of these articles to his workshop students. The package I have goes back to about 1985. There were two articles dealing with unsharp masks with references to the technique in a number of his articles.

One is titled Making Unsharp Masks for B&W Negative dated Jan/Feb 1996. The other is Unsharp Masking Update dated Sept/Oct 1997. I could scan these for anyone interested. Send me an email with your address.

[MarkL]

I would recommend Lynn Radeka's negative carrier/mask aligner and his workshop. Trying to visually align a negative and mask with tape or pins is not easy, not to mention you have to realign if you want to make a new mask or store the negative separately. His anti newton class carrier is also the mask contact printing frame and you can slap a mask onto the carrier with the neg in an instant!

[Byron Worthen]

Wildbill,

I have seen quite a few of John Sexton's originals and own a few, including one that is in his latest book. Not all of his photographs use unsharp masking. The sharpness in his photographs is mostly a result of his careful attention to details, calibration of all of his equipment, and his skill. The books do have to be printed with some sort of masking (I don't know a lot about book printing), but the original silver prints are extremely sharp. But do not fear, not one of my own photos is as sharp as any of his. When visitors see his "Corn Lilies, Dusk" on my wall, they have a hard time believing that it is a photograph since it is sharper than any photograph they have ever seen.

I guess it helps when you don't just buy a lens of a particular focal length, but pick the most optically accurate from a set of identical lenses, and things like that. Take his expressive print class and you will see that he is meticulous in every aspect of photography.

[Riverviewer]

Being fairly new to APUG but have attended John Sexton's 'Fine Tuning' workshop and highly recommend it if it is possible. John and his wife, Anne, are amazing team. The week was more than worth the $$ spent. He's in CA. and I am in ME.

[Riverviewer]

I am just getting started with unsharp masking techniques and found this link very helpful- thanks!

[JMB]

I have a copy of a 3 part article by Mark Jilg and Dennis McNutt on masking and how to make masks.

If you would like a copy then send an email with just "masking" in the subject line and nothing else in message. Send request to:

masking (at) visualperception (dot) net

I'm only going to send this once in a day or two.

Dear Rob or Others,

Would you mind sending out another copy of the McNutt - Jilig article? I just ran across this thread today after spending some time researching the techniques.

Thank you and Warm Regards,
Joe

[Ralph T]

Dear Rob or Others,

Would you mind sending out another copy of the McNutt - Jilig article? I just ran across this thread today after spending some time researching the techniques.

Thank you and Warm Regards,
Joe

I'd love to get a copy of this as well. Thanks!

[Loren Sattler]

Chuck, Howard Bond from Ann Arbor, MI taught photography workshops for many years. He is a master B&W photographer and printer. He is a strong believer in using unsharp masks for traditional B&W printing from 4 x 5 negatives. He wrote several articles over the years covering his techniques. I have scanned copies of these which I will be happy to forward to you. Send me an email requesting them: lcs7@bex.net