b-w development on colour paper

Clawe007 · 2014-10-10T15:08:02+00:00

Hallo, ich habe eine größere Menge an Farbpapieren bekommen. Kann ich meine s/w Negative auch auf dem Farbpapier belichten oder büßt man sehr an Qualität ei...

Clawe007

Hello, I’ve received a large batch of colour paper. Can I expose my black-and-white negatives on this colour paper, or will the quality suffer significantly? Many thanks for your replies!

Magirus

Hello What’s the argument against it? After all, the Ilford XP2 is ‘just’ a black-and-white film There’s no orange cast, so there’s no need to filter it out So far, I haven’t seen any reason to go down that route I’ve printed colour film on black-and-white paper quite often Regards, Bernd

Wolf_XL

... oh dear – do you actually know the difference between RA-4 and black and white?!?

Magirus

RA4 is the developer for colour paper As I understood it, the question was whether black-and-white negatives can be exposed on colour paper. I hope the question wasn’t about how the development should be carried out. Best regards, Bernd

Rolf-Werner

Well – I can remember doing something like that in the past. The result was always that the images were incredibly flat, so you had to use a hardness of 4 or even 5 to make the subject look reasonably ‘crisp’, like it would from a black-and-white negative. € Right, and now I’ve read it again and realise I’ve got it completely the wrong way round :) € Of course you can print black-and-white negatives onto colour paper, but I don’t know if you can develop RA4 paper in black-and-white developer – I’ve never tried it. If you run it through an RA4 process, you can certainly incorporate some interesting colour effects. € One problem is likely to be that you have to develop it in the dark or in a drum, as it’s sensitive to all colours. And then there’s the bleaching stage with colour paper. I don’t know whether you can improvise that or if you need the original chemicals, and what happens if you don’t do it. Why not just give it a go? I’d be quite interested to see... € Rolf

Wolf_XL

... to cut a long story short: ?

RA-4 paper needs to be developed in RA-4 chemicals.
RA-4 chemicals are more expensive than black-and-white chemicals and, on top of that, they deteriorate more quickly
RA-4 paper is extremely sensitive to variations in the process – time and temperature must be strictly adhered to
RA-4 paper does not offer different gradients

... so: ? Purely theoretically, one could expose black-and-white negatives onto colour paper and even achieve reasonably decent results – but the effort involved and the other drawbacks would be far too great...

Tandemfahren

... to cut a long story short: ?
RA-4 paper needs to be developed in RA4 chemicals.

Why is that? Why not just pop it in N113? What’s the principle behind not doing that? ? No idea if the result will be any good, but in principle it should work. ? Experience shows that developing a black-and-white negative on RA-4 in the RA-4 process tends to result in ‘Wunst’. [size=0](Art comes from skill, Wunst comes from will)[/size] ? Frank

Wolf_XL

...on the one hand, the silver serves a different purpose in the colour process – which is why it is removed in the RA-4 process using the Bleach bath – and, on the other hand, the colorants contained in the paper are likely to produce unpredictable results. It is therefore unlikely that this method will yield satisfactory results.

Tandemfahren

Wolf, I reckon so too – but it’s only really true once you’ve given it a go. If the stuff’s just lying about anyway, there’s nothing to lose by having a go. ‘Crossing’ with paper, how cool... The gradient probably can’t be controlled, which is likely the root of the problem, meaning failure is more or less inevitable. € But only by trying can you really find out, and who knows, maybe you can conjure up something incredibly beautiful from it – toning, lith printing, Alohomora, and hey presto – five points for Gryffindor! € Frank

Wolf_XL

...yes, of course – I might even give it a go myself... I'm just wondering, though, why the person who asked the question hasn't done it themselves already. From what I've read, they already have the paper – so they really should be the one doing the beta testing...

MirkoBoeddecker

the colorants contained in the paper can lead to unexpected results

The colorants are in the developing solution (RA-4). The couplers are in the paper. However, the paper has a mask, and I don’t know whether this is removed in the fixer. Colour film can be developed in black-and-white developer. However, there is always more silver in the film than is developed out. With paper, there is always just enough in it that, when fully developed, you achieve a reasonable Dmax. This may not be the case with colour paper in black-and-white chemicals, as a small amount of silver is likely sufficient to provide enough coupler surface area to then couple sufficient colorants, which then produce the Dmax. It is therefore possible that you will not achieve a proper black. Furthermore, the whole process is only suitable for well-exposed and high-contrast negatives due to the lack of gradation control. Nevertheless, I’d be curious to see the results :-) € Mirko

mattes

I scan a lot of my black-and-white negatives and slides. I then have them developed into prints via an online upload service at a major photo lab. In my opinion, this is the only viable way to get decent prints, especially with black-and-white slides. The prints produced manually using a negative enlarger and photographic paper have slightly higher contrast, but I wouldn’t necessarily say they’re better. I do this especially when I need several prints from a single negative and don’t have a digital camera to hand. “I’d say it’s worth a try. Just bear in mind that the printers in the large-scale labs use digital laser exposure. Just give it a go and let me know how it goes – I’m always interested in slightly offbeat things.” Happy New Year Mattes