I'm a high school student who has been printing in a darkroom for about six months. I recently shot a roll of film with Kodak Select that has a red base-it was some sort of color/b&w combination. My local photo lab processed the negatives for me, but they are producing terribly grey prints, and I suspect that I should be using filters when I print from these negatives. My darkroom has no filters and they are a bit out of my budget. I have, however, a swatch book of stage lighting gels (Roscolux) with about 100 or so colors of plastic filters. Will these work as contrast filters in the darkroom? (I use an Omega enlarger, if that matters). I also have a Red R2 filter for my camera, but suspect that this would render my enlarger essentially a safe light, and make printing impossible. If the gels will work, what color would make a good substitute for contrastfilters? I have varying shades from light amber through orang and red. Any help you can offer is appreciated! Thanks!

-- JB (swiftsailing@hotmail.com), March 23, 2001

Answers

I don't think you can use filters. The "red base" you speak of is a built in mask used to facilitate color printing. I believe you must use a panchromatic enlarging paper like Kodak Panalure.

-- Robert Orofino (minotaur1949@aol.com), March 23, 2001.

If you think about your question for a couple of minutes, you may come to the realization that Kodak's TN chromgenic 'B&W' film is plain junk. As a student, you should be learning how to use legitimate B&W materials, like Ilford HP-5+ (a good one to start with.)

-- Michael D Fraser (mdfraser@earthlink.net), March 24, 2001.

Kodak Black and White Plus is NOT meant to be printed on Black and White enlarging paper--just color paper. If you want to make your own prints using C-41 process BW film, you have to buy either Ilford XP2 super or Kodak T400CN (the new Portra BW, by the way, will have the same "problem" for darkroom printers, according to the literature). Black and White Plus is designed to provide more accurate black and white tones on mini-lab color printers, which for your purposes means you would have to use something like Kodak Panalure paper (for color negs) to get anything reasonable out of it yourself at home with black and white materials. If you must use C-41 black and white films, for whatever the reason, the XP2 super has a purplish base much like "real" black and white, and the Kodak T400CN can give you lovely results IF you start with the equivlant of "grade 3" filtering.

-- MR (reynard75@hotmail.com), March 24, 2001.

Ok...not a good film to use for my B&W darkroom and regular B&W paper. Thanks for that info...my local photo lab had told me that it should be fine. I won't make that mistake again, I'll go back to using Tri-X. So, theoretically, over the summer I could use the same color/B&W film to shoot stuff that could be processed in a standard color lab at, say, Wal-Mart?

-- JB (swiftsailing@hotmail.com), March 24, 2001.

Yes, you can use the C-41 based stuff over the summer to be processed at local Wal-Marts.

-- Johnny Motown (johnny.motown@att.net), March 24, 2001.

Yeah, but again, I'd recommend you stick to T400CN or XP2 Super so if you get something you love you still have the option of working on it in the darkroom.

-- MR (reynard75@hotmail.com), March 25, 2001.

I would also recommend sticking with either T400CN or XP2. Then consider the prints from the WalMart as proofs to determine which negatives to print next semester.

You could probably use the Rosco gels to help print the negatives you have, but you most likely waste more money in paper and chemicals (not to mention time) than a set of contrast filters. Contrast filters are not very expensive. What you need is magenta filtration. The yellow component of the orange mask is making the paper print as low contrast. This is if you are using variable contrast paper. Another solution might be to pick up some graded paper.

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), March 25, 2001.