How do I make a B/W print from a color neg?

-- Roy Meyer (southsky@icon.co.za), September 15, 1999

Answers

Use Kodak Panalure paper. It is designed to have sensitivity to all colors of light. Beware: it must be used in total darkness. I believe it is still available in three grades.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edbuffaloe@unblinkingeye.com), September 15, 1999.

I have used VC paper, but you have to play with the filters to get decent contrast. also on B&W paper the grain seems to stand out.

-- Larrye Edye (WA4GMS@webtv.net), September 15, 1999.

I've also done it on ordinary VC paper WITHOUT a filter. You have no control over contrast beyond playing with exposure, but it works pretty well for some negatives. Certainly, some of the tonal values in the prints will be different from a color negative than they'd be in a true b/w negative, but only another skilled photographer will be able to tell...

As to grain, there definitely was some - a bit more than an equivalent speed b/w film would show. But still, it was fun and worked surprisingly well.

-- Michael Goldfarb (mgoldfar@mobius-inc.com), September 16, 1999.

Make a duplicate negative, and print it on conventional B&W paper.

There are a couple of different ways to attack this. The first is to make a flat positive on a 4x5 sheet film; I have used T-Max 100 in the past for this step. You want a positive which is flat and a bit dark, so that all of the information in the colour negative is there.

Next, make a negative from the flat positive. I have used Kodak Professional Copy Film in 4x5 sheets, and developed it in HC-110(B). This will give you a negative with enough "snap" so that you will be able to print it with minimal filtration on VC papers. If you try and make the negative on conventional B&W film the negative will be flatflatFLAT!

For this step you COULD try the same film as for the positive, and develop it in D-19 or D-11 to get the contrast up. I haven't tried this, yet.

Dust will be a problem, especially if you make any of the pos/negs by contact. I would recommend a diffusion enlarger, even if there is a small loss of sharpness. And I can't give you specific exposures or development times; those will have to be found by trial.

The other option I have used in the past is to print the colour negative directly on to Ilford XP-2 film, and process it in an E-6 line. That's right, I said an E-6 line.

The XP-2 film is a C-41 (colour negative) film designed to give a B&W negative when developed in C-41 chemistry. When developed in an E-6 line, it reverses and gives the same tonal relationships as the original. If you expose a colour negative on to it, you will get a B&W negative out. But only if it goes through an E-6 line.

A couple of potential problems and drawbacks. The first is that unless you do your own E-6 processing, or have access to an E-6 line, when you bring the film to a lab, they may refuse to process it. Talk to the manager, and tell him/her what you are up to. If they refuse, find another lab.

The second is that the image will be flat. You will have to have the film "pushed" to get enough contrast to make this work. And, you will have to do a bit of experimentation with the materials. Try having the film pushed two stops to start.

Kodak's C-41 chromogenic film (T-Max 400CN is what it is called, I think) MIGHT also work for this. I have never tried it, so again, you will have to make tests.

Lastly, you could make (or have made for you) a colour print and copy it on to B&W fil, and print that negative.

-- Terrence Brennan (tbrennan13@hotmail.com), September 21, 1999.

I'm a little confused about Terrence's response. Wouldn't you get generational image degradation from copying the negative to a postive and back to get from color to b/w? Would it be better to just print onto panalure, as Ed suggested, as that is what the paper was designed for. I've used panalure and had good results with it. Is there a benefit to the going through all the trouble?

-- James Wolfe (wolfephoto@yahoo.com), September 21, 1999.

Keep life simple and use Panalure papre. It must be handled in complete darkness but it prosessed with conventional B+W chemistry. I like to use the medium contrast grade. I find that VC and MC papers really suck when used with colour negs. You must use a grade 4 filter at least and the grain is large enough to be confused with celestial objects.

-- shawn boyle (shawn6@ids.net), November 09, 1999.