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A second chance to save failed negatives

We are often surprised by the presence of failed negatives in our old files, or with recent snapshots of us, despite our many attempts to avoid failure. The important thing is that we can save these failed or almost failed negatives by modern and innovative methods.

Black and white printing paper is essentially a material of intense light contrast, intended - even in its lighter degrees - to widen the range of limited color gamut in a properly endorsed negative, returning to all gray levels, and with this color contrast, details that we see clearly in a negative may occur. To disappear in an edition made in the normal direct way. It gets lost in pitch blackness, or burns out as a mere blank sheet of paper.
The solution rarely stops on lighter contrast paper, as this will reduce gradation differences between fine details within large areas of highlights and shadows.
As for the correct solution, it is to make the negatives consistent with the appropriate printing conditions and contain the total range of color gradations of the subject within certain limits, and this means adjusting the exposure and endorsement, but for users of language film (*) and 35 mm film, the usual endorsement (*) for individual frames is not practical.
Thus, the orbital system (*) is invalidated with the stabilizer used for the shot in the middle of a language that differs as to whether the exposure is correct, although we issue wrong judgments in some corrective is the solution. Should, half in the shade and half in the sun As for the user of the language and 35 mm, print and brake (*) and burn with optional clipping.
The Gene Nocon timer, with its memory programming and related pause controls, is the greatest tool for monochromatic proofreading.
A basic photocopy of the lightest important part in the negative is placed on a regular timer. This may reach ten seconds, and after one exposure for the whole image with the main exposure, we persist in pressing the repeat key in the timer to give additional units of ten seconds to different areas of the image. Palms and a rectangle can be used. Cardboard as a tool for avoidance. It's a technique that lacks fine tuning up to a quarter pause, but it works well with practice.
Sometimes it happens that we don't want to use a full color gamut from black to white in a print, or we have large areas of light gradation at the edges that we don't want to burn. And the black borders that are reprinted around the image area by adopting a second exposure on an empty negative carrier and a mask of black cardboard, which provides an inferential color gradient (*) and preserves the image.

Hard negatives
What it means to go through a proofreading is to find difficult negatives, and then go back to the contents of old files. Over the course of ten years, Patterson slides had caused shellac and fibers to ooze on many of the cuts, but the surgical mentality worked with full effect.
The first negative that was chosen was a shot of a Leica, “unphotosynthesized” and shown with acitol, which is a snapshot of an old market that no longer exists. And it happened that the direct print of degree 2 gave a result that was damaged by dirty shellac, in which strong shadows hid most of the details of the fruits and vegetables that were displayed at the time in the market.
The main exposure lasted ten seconds at f/11 for 9 1/2 x 6 1/2 in. Using Leitz Valoy In, CE Rokker 50mm Argenta RC Special paper, Normation finish at 1:9, I made all prints of this image with this setup with different Argentn RC tones.
Then two exposure units of ten seconds each were given for the upper half of the shot only, with cardboard being used to shade the ceiling of the selling stand. Finally, three exposure units of ten seconds each were given for the fruits under total sunlight in the lower right of the shot. And with locational accuracy for another radiating area of ​​the platform. This snapshot is the most complex example, and there are few negatives dotted with sunlight in conditions of extreme light contrast. Compare the original with the final version, then return your thoughts to your own negatives that may have been neglected because they are a failure and cannot be printed.

And as a second really difficult negative, we find a snapshot of the little girl who is comforted by the pupils of one of the school classes. It was first printed on typical contact paper, as it seems: I got an exposure suitable for the bright areas, so it came out blurry. However, this snapshot was widely reprinted and even appreciated when it was published in The Guardian.
It's a very old photo 1968, taken with a camera, Pentax S3, borrowed and equipped with a telephoto lens, Haminix 135mm pre-prepared, and loaded with Peruvian black and white 80 aza film. The second edition has two major changes - exposure and cropping. It uses only half of the negative, and about A quarter of the exposures required for normal printing on (Argenta Normal) 3 degrees. I give the top of the photo a four times the main exposure, and so were the children behind the bent girl.
The ground at the bottom right was given a basic exposure of eight times and eventually the spots and scratches were removed; This is the case for any negativity that has been used regularly for 15 years. It needs a lot of care and attention.

- Intricate details
Most negatives taken in uncontrolled conditions outside the studio contain detail that spoils the content and for shots like this suppressing to effect total whitening is seldom a good solution, as long as it looks more like a lack of detail. The best solution is to burn the bad area, removing the negative if necessary. To use pure light to get pure black, the example shows an artist, Leslie Beckett, working on a set for a harp. The full shot at 2 shows a large obstructed window and more than the right amount of light on the instrument, plus a very poorly positioned window behind the artist.
The base exposure was ten seconds at f/11 for the face and jacket area. Then I re-converted the snapshot into a square to get rid of an area that has nothing to do with the subject. As for the harp and the window, we got a basic exposure of four times.
And they made an inverted (L) shape on the right side track and the bottom of the picture, where the erase was done with the corner of a piece of cardboard. Then use a soft water blue pen to mark the location of the background window and mark it on the print.
He also used the magnifier as a light source with plenty of palm movement to keep the burning edge soft, as two exposures of ten seconds each produced good blacks

Uneven color gradation
It happens to the negativity sometimes that it does not agree with the paper, so the white horse shot in a scene. Uncharacteristically normal is like that. It's a pantomax negative (X) taken with a deep red filter, blending minimal exposure with maximum contrast. When printed at 2°, it appears either dark when exposed due to the exigencies of bright areas, or disappointingly normal if printed to achieve
Medium gray overall colour.
It is true that fragmentation and reshaping to achieve a longer shape is an auxiliary measure, but the bulk improvement is from an extremely hard paper (*) Argenta Ectra (Hard which is equal to, Ilford, grade 5).
The negativity is improved by the very hard paper itself. The actual improvement takes place in the detailed optical contrast in the field, and the only way for this to happen is with the solid paper.
As for the rest of the picture, i.e. the white horse and the sky is light in colour. It can be corrected by on-site burning.
The horse gets eight times the basic exposure, with a burn made with great precision and care, while the sky gets twice the basic exposure with the simple use of a piece of cardboard. light within a single color gradient area.

Mild grades
Often, light paper is not needed unless it is related to social portraits or registration of an industrial or construction work, so the trend tends to ignore it. Some printers think that it gives weak black colors, but this happens because they use very little of this paper, which makes it old. This, and it happens to some of the disadvantages of the extreme light contrast, which appears almost like litho, when it is obeyed on 20 degree paper. Normal, just plain black and white. The print is lighter, with more exposure. It shows structure details that do not exist at all in the normal print, and there is no hint of this distinctive and possible result that comes either with the negative or with a contact chip in most cases.

Deliberate exposure shifts:
In the end, a print can be modified with an exposure so radically wrong as a forest scene. With intentional diffusion of light beyond correct boundaries and extreme contrast, it fails to give the correct impression of splendor when printed directly, and with black borders framing and eye-contrasting gradation, a concise version is made by adopting a mere 1/16th of an exposure - correct, no analogy here. with the original.
Pictures like this appear distinctively effective when supported by color gradation, and they succeed most as exhibition prints, with extreme care being taken when choosing the surface of the print, the color of the photo, and the caption.

Conclusions:
If you like to work in black and white, and are dealing with subjects where the light may not be in control and exposure time readings may not be available, remember the incredible flexibility of monochrome paper. Take a second look at your negatives file.