I am currently working with 35mm negatives and enlarging onto 8x10 RC paper. I've always printed so that my image takes up the full page with the full black border visable and some white remaining around that. I've thought about printing leaving no black border so that i project the image right to the edge of the page, or having some black showing, but no white around that. How do you print? i understand this is a question of taste, but all opinions and techniques and preferences on this matter are appreciated.

-- Andrew Johnson (vsprofessor@hotmail.com), February 14, 2001

Answers

Andrew -

PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just print the way you like!!!!!!!!!

chris

-- Christian Harkness (chris.harkness@eudoramail.com), February 15, 2001.

I have to agree with Christian... some images warrant full frame, some cropped and some look good with the black border. Print them how YOU like... there is no real set way for regular hobby stuff.

-- Scott Walton (f64sw@hotmail.com), February 15, 2001.

I have recently taken to printing the full frame of a 35mm negative to a little larger than 5x7 on an 8x10 sheet. There are a few reasons why, firsly I print on FB and like to keep the image area quite far from the edge as I do not dry mount, secondly, I have grown to like the aestetic of the image border visable. Most importantly, I find a well exposed/processed 35mm negative (Ilford Delta 100) enlarges extremely well to this size, any more and I find the circle of confusion unacceptable.

-- Jeffrey Haddock (jhaddock@chat.carleton.ca), February 19, 2001.

6x9 on 8x10 paper. 9x12 on 11x14 paper. Full frame. I like the "look" of a matted print even when it's not yet matted. Big fat white borders look nice. 50/50 on black borders vs. clean edge....sometimes I like it sometimes I don't. Depends on the image and use.

-- Peter T (pete1959@pacbell.net), February 20, 2001.