Masking and contact printing

[Mahler_one]

I am curious as to whether or not anyone is using a masking set up whilst contact printing. If so, might you share the details?

Ed

[Mike Wilde]

I was told by Les McLean that there was a time when Ilford used to make thier paper sample packs that went out to thier dealer sales points by contact means. Thousands of prints of each image would be required.

Enlarged negatives were used, and contact printed. If there were any areas that needed burns or dodges, then the effect was replicted by strategically placing bits of neutral denisty acetate on a diffusion layer in the opticla path between the light source and the negative. Then the thousands of prints could be banged out by anyone working the contact printer.

I have also seen on the *bay old contact printers with banks of individual lights that colud be selectively turned on to give the same effect by varying the intensity of the lighting source, so it vared across the neg.

[dwdmguy]

This is a good question Ed, I'd like to understand how to make a mask for a contact as well. I'll be printing a Xpan 65x24 neg. Thax

[Sharadn]

I make masks for contact printing. It is called paper plane masking. All the same principles apply as masking while enlarging. I punch the paper and locate it on the pins. The negative and whatever masks are also punched. Any mask that can be used in the enlarger can also be used while contact printing. I actually find it easier than masking while enlarging.
Art

[Michael A. Smith]

With Lodima silver chloride paper, which has a very long straight line and very little toe and shoulder, only about 20% of the dodging and burning that one would do on enlarging paper is necessary. And masking, with all of the work involved, is almost never (as in maybe once in ten years) necessary. Why anyone would use enlarging paper on which to make contact prints remains a mystery to me. And it would remain a mystery even if we had not made the new paper. I think anyone who does not make contact prints on contact printing paper is setting themselves up for a lot of unnecessary work, but hey, to each his (or her) own.

Just yesterday we received this email:

"I've printed a few 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 negatives on samples of the pre-production Lodima paper. My oh my what grand results. I could not achieve a satisfactory print with some of my negatives contact printed on my usual enlarging paper; however, they printed easily on Lodima. I am eagerly awaiting the new paper."

Michael A. Smith

[Maris]

I occasionally use RC paper as a positive contrast reduction mask when exposing photographs by contact. The sandwich in the contact frame (counting from the glass down) consists of a RC contact positive face up, the negative used to make it, and a FB receiving sheet. Exposure doesn't seem to be overly long because RC paper lets through a fair bit of light. The RC base diffuses the positive image to yield desirable "unsharp masking".

Registration is no problem. I just shove everything into the same corner of the contact frame and all the sheets line up automatically. By the way making positive masks out of FB paper does not work. FB changes size when processed!

[Donmck]

I bought a 500 sheet box of velox a while back,so I've been doing a little homework--- I ran across this quick and dirty mask which I.ve used a few times with some success...


79. By tissue papering the printing frame and applying dry yellow ochre to the tissue paper, over the shadow portions of the negative, thus holding them back while the highlights are printing. Or, the glass side of the negative may be ground-glassed and the same application of yellow ochre applied. The former is the more simple, requiring less time. By this method small parts may be held back with the ochre applied to the tissue paper. A negative like this can then be printed evenly by any light; but under circumstances where dodging is employed, you must print further from the light; thus giving more even diffusion and avoiding lines or marks caused by the ochre applied to the tissue paper.

The longer traditional method follows this one---I'll have go back and get the link,I'm on one of these notebook things---one page at a time.

Don

[Donmck]

http://www.achestofbooks.com/arts/ph...ht-Papers.html

Don