I have been trying to produce B&W prints from color negs. Panalure leaves a lot to be desired (I don't care for the glossy finish)and I haven't had much luck with copying color prints. If anyone has an idea I sure would like to hear it. Thanks, Mike

-- Mike Knapik (msknapik@worldnet.att.net), December 15, 1998

Answers

B&W Prints from color negs - Panalure

Greetings! I've been printing onto panalure from color negs with great results and even good results to just regular B&W paper. I only go to Panalure when the tones are noticably off and important for that particular image. Anyhow, I too don't care a lot for the glossy paper, but it works. Is this your only complaint about this paper?

Another option that I've used in the past is to have your color negatives scanned: this can be done rather economically by most printing service bureaus. The price ranges from 88 cents per frame to $20 per frame depending on many factors(neg size, bureau, etc). I'm most certain you can get adequate service with the 88 cents to a $1 range. Once you get the cd-rom back, load your image into photoshop or whatever imaging software you're using, convert it to gray scale, dodge and burn if desired, save the file to a zip disk since it will/should be rather large(18 to 72 megs), find a service bureau that can image it straight to a negative, and tah'dah! You got yourself a black and white negative ready for printing. Although the cost of having a bureau print a digital image to film will be around $7 to $15(for 35mm: Higher for 6x6, etc) per frame depending on many factors. All this, of course, depends on how much you truly dislike Panalure -- and your budget. :-) Oh! Be certain to request that the bureau does in fact use black and white film as they're use to dealing with color negs and especially positives.

Best of luck!

Respectfully, Leslie Ratliff

-- Leslie Ratliff (leslie@carteret.com), December 30, 1998.