colour neg to B+W print

redto

Hi all,
Darkroom question.
Has anyone made B+W prints from color negatives with success?. I have tried it with some but usually get a rather flat print more mud and white than B+W. I know the color neg is not designed for monochrome , but has anyone tried and got good results. how did you do it or choose the neg that converts best. harder paper ? softer paper? so on

cheers

artyeva

start with a negative with high level of contrast in it, to begin with. it's easier to see what effect the light will have on lighter and darker areas of the image, to practice with.

use a higher number filter to increase the contrast as much as you need, and dodge and burn. a wee thin wire with a circle of card on the end to dodge the light on over exposed areas, and a piece of card bigger than you print size with a wee hole in it to move around and burn underexposed areas - test strips are your friend. it's not easy but i've done a few in the past that turned out half decent. i'm not sure what you mean by harder or softer paper but the ones i liked best were on gloss ilford multigrade - it's all i could afford at the time.

redto

cheers eva.
meant higher filter number with multigrade paper.
guess its experience. kinda figured it would be trial an error using your tips. was just being lazy an lookin for magic combo to do it

thefizz

As said, prints made this way can be very flat so use a high filter grade if using multi grade paper or use a higher graded paper if using graded paper.

Kodak used to make a special B&W paper for printing colour negs called Panalure but its long out of manufacture and probably hard to find these days, except for the box I have in my fridge

magicbastarder

since b&w paper is only sensitive to a narrow colour band of light, and is not sensitive to reddish bands (which is the colour of the base of the film), would i be right in saying that that's why it's hard to print from colour negs?

thefizz

Thats pretty much it I believe. The special Panalure paper is more sensitive to red/orange than normal B&W paper and so must be used in complete darkness, ie., no safe light.