The process of creating a digital negative for making contact prints is simple in theory but has a lot of details and some critical parts such as making custom curves in Photoshop for each of your print processes. The hill is pretty big to climb and to do it right requires a lot of expensive equipment and software. At a minimum you will need a late model computer (PC or Mac), Photoshop, a professional quality Inkjet printer, OHP film, and a lot of time and patience to get things to where you can make a high quality print. You will need a color calibrated workflow as well. That alone can be a big hill to climb for a lot of people. If you don’t work with a calibrated monitor, you are just going to frustrate yourself and not be able to produce consistent results. The rewards are high, but so is the price of admission.
Before I provide an overview of the steps for making digital negatives I want to discuss why someone may want to make them. To be clear, digital negatives are simply a replacement for large format film negatives. Digital negatives can allow a digital camera photographer to make large contact prints (silver, alternative, etc) that otherwise would not be an option. Even if you are a film photographer, you may not be able to use the size of negative that you want for your final print. Many times I have my 120 medium format camera or my 4×5 and I want to make an 8×10 or 16×20 alternative print. The only two options is to make an enlarged negative with Ortho film in the darkroom or to scan my negative and print a digital negative on Pictorico OHP film.
Since the relationship between the negative and final print is not linear, custom modifications must be applied to make a proper print. You can use digital negatives to make traditional darkroom silver gelatin contact prints or a host of any other alternative print types that employ contact printing. If you want to make a contact print and you don’t want to or don’t have access to a camera to produce the size of negative required for your final print size then creating a negative from your scanned film or digital RAW file in Photoshop and printing on OHP film may be a good option. The term digital negative comes from the process which is used to make the negative not the industry term (DNG) which is confused at times.
I use 4×5, 5×7, and 8×10 large format cameras and in many cases I don’t need to make a digital negative if I have a proper negative. Each printing process (e.g. salt, van dyke, platinum, palladium) requires a slightly different negative and so by creating a digital negative I can photograph the scene once, develop my negative as I normally do, make my contrast adjustments in Photoshop for each process, produce a custom curve for each target printing process and make the prints. If I did this on analog film I would need to make a film negative tailored for each printing method.
Even if I am making a print the same size as my large format negative it can still be desirable to make the digital negative. For example, I can make all of my creative edits (cropping, contrast adjustments, dust spot cleanup, etc.) in the scanned image that is not possible when making a contact print from the original negative. Because different printing processes (e.g., salt prints, platinum prints, Van Dykes, etc.) require different types of contrast for the negative, I can expose and develop my regular negative using the zone system as I typically do for the wet darkroom and then scan the negative and make the adjustments for each printing process that I want to use. In the spirit of full disclosure there are times when I electively choose to extend the contrast of my negative using the zone system to target a specific printing process such as Platinum, Palladium, or Salt.
Other reasons that make digital negatives attractive from a logical perspective would include: I can use smaller cameras (e.g., medium format systems) and then scan the negatives to make very large digital negatives for my custom prints. I can use my Mamiya 7 Rangefinder (6×7) or Hasselblad (6×6) and effortlessly create 16×20 or even larger digital negatives. I don’t personally use a digital camera at this time, but people that have DSLR’s or other digital capture devices can make digital negatives from their RAW files so they can make custom hand-made prints too. I’ve seen some people literally make some incredible alternative prints from photos taken with their iPhone. I’ve actually make a Palladium print from a digital negative that I made from my iPhone 4s. When I showed the print with a group of my other Pd prints, no one had a clue.
Photographer’s that prefer to use digital as their capture medium can still make custom hand-made prints using this method. If you have never made or seen a platinum or palladium print in person then you are really missing out on an exquisite and beautiful piece of art. Many of the other print processes such as silver gelatin, silver chloride, salt, albumen, van dyke, ziatype and others work extremely well from digital negatives. Also, if you don’t want to risk using your real negative for the contact printing process then a digital negative could be a good alternative. If you negative incurs any type of defect, just print another one.
The High Level Process Includes:
- Take exposure on digital camera (RAW) or scan film negative
- Make artistic adjustments/corrections to image in Photoshop
- Size image to dimensions of negative in Photoshop
- Apply custom curve profile in Photoshop
- Invert the image to a negative & add color layer to extend tonal range
- Flip horizontally for contact printing
- Print image on Pictorico Ultra Premium OHP transparency film
- Make contact print (Pt/Pd, Salt, Van Dyke, Silver Gelatin, etc.)
- Dry and either archivally store or mount print
The devil is in the details in regards to the process. Applying a custom curve is not a simple process and it must be figured out and tested for each printing process (e.g., silver gelatin, Pt/Pd, salt print, Van Dyke, etc) in conjunction with lighting and exposure sources as well as chemical choices that may apply (e.g., developers, toner bath, etc). The custom curve is uniquely built around your specific processes and environment (paper, temperature, humidity, light sources, etc.)
Determining the proper exposure time based on DMAX is critical to making a high quality print and must be figured out before any prints can be made. Read my article on determining your base exposure time to get started on your journey.
In future articles I will provide detailed instructions of how I create my digital negatives with some of my printing processes to help get you started. I will try and mix things up to cover as many different scenarios as possible.
Related Articles
How to Determine Base Exposure Time for Contact Prints
How to Scan Film Negatives for Creating Digital Negatives
Tim
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Tim Layton
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