Contact Printing 5x7 on 8x10 paper

[Sully75]

What you plan to do is not recommended for the following reasons--unless you plan to overmat the print right to the edge of the print. But I assume you do not plan to do that. The large white borders of glossy paper will be the brightest thing the eye sees when looking at your print. It will be distracting from the tones of the print itself.


Michael A. Smith

Michael, most art prints have a white border around them. And a matted print has a white border too.

[jerry lebens]

Ruby lith tape is one answer, but a little fidly. Another option would be to use the black sticky backed plastic made for signwriting and graphics. This can be stuck onto the 10x8 sheet of glass then an aperture cut out in the correct position and the unwanted part peeled away. A small strip of actetate could then be taped on top of the plastic, along one side of the aperture, to act as a crude registration device (a la Paterson contact frame).

Having said this I'd also consider two further options which may or may not suit your intentions but might make things a little easier, if you're prepared to think laterally.
1) Make a same size print, using an enlarger and masking frame, thus avoiding all the problems you'll get regarding general fiddlyness and registration.
2) Make a contact on 5x7 paper, then dry mount it onto a larger sheet of board (or even unexposed 'fixed' photo paper) - not precisely the same thing but visually similar.

Regards
Jerry

[paulie]

whats difficult about using lith tape, ive set up sheets with pre stuck tape, havent touched the tape for years. once made you will have white border on contacts , no fuss.

trust me dont mess just use the lith tape

[Michael A. Smith]

The white border of a mat board is of a different reflectance (duller) than the white border of photo paper. It is my opinion that the white border of photo paper around a print is distracting.

I dry mount l of my prints, so there is not a black border, nor the white border of photo paper. According to testing that was done comparing dry mounted and hinged prints it was found that the dry mount tissue provided a significant benefit regarding archival longevity of the print.

Michael A. Smith