recently i have been interested in trying to make hard edge black boarders around my prints by cuttunig cardboard as a frame in my oversized neg holder, but the results have been mixed. i tend to get too much burning around the edges or the edges are soft, what am i doing wrong? is there publications or imformation on the subject? can anybody help? thanks.

-- nic montagu (montagu_nic@hotmail.com), April 23, 1999

Answers

For some ideas, in this forum, use for browser to search for the word 'border' in the title.

Putting a mask near the negative is doomed, there is no depth of field, so it is bound to be out of focus (which, come to think of it, might be 'creative'). For a sharp black border, you have to do the work near the paper. As noted in the other threads, I use thick black paper for masks. Other people use other methods.

Various methods are illustrated in various books, such as 'Larry Bartlett's Black and White Photographic Printing Workshop'. Despite the remarkably clumsy title, an excellent book.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), April 23, 1999.

Check out my version of the method for black borders in Larry Bartlett's Black and White Photographic Printing Workshop.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), April 23, 1999.

Hi! If you want to include the whole negative and not only what the ordinary negative carriers give you then here is a good solution.

One: You can buy a negative carrier that is slightly larger than the negatives, which they seldom are and you usually loose cm of your neg.

You wrote you had a negative carrier that was to big, but if you bought one that fitted your negative size and filed it out (and thereby including the areas of the negative outside your picture), and make sure the surfice will not scratch your negative,you can decide what the boarder would look like i.e. rough or smooth.

I use a filed out 35mm negative carrier and it is beautifull and gives me what i need- the whole negative + a look that contributes to the final presentation.

Good luck Ketil Hardy

-- Ketil Hardy (d0307kah@solent.ac.uk), December 11, 1999.