bleach and reversal process is really interesting. but I find it to be quite toxic and worrisome. This method does require a little more work and paper expense, but it is quite repeatable.

Yes，and this method also allows certain degree of contrast control through paper negatives printing.

@@Jacksymmar Yes which is a very handy function!

Thanks very much! I am also not totally happy with interrupting all analog processes by using a digital negative. So I love to try and figure everything out in the darkroom!

Digital negatives are easy to make and there are a number of books out there each with their own approach. Most of them tend to make the process more complicated than necessary; perhaps to sell more books! ;-) An additional advantage is that you can make small negatives and test prints from them, until you have exactly the print you want, then upscale for larger negatives with only small changes to contrast and brightness.

I don't think the grain on the ortho film is caused by the rc paper positive. I am not using fiber paper so the paper is quite smooth and relatively thin. I believe the grain is simply from the fixed high contrast of the ortho film. I had a professor who always kept a tin of bowling lane wax in the darkroom to wax paper negs. I have personally never tried this method as it seems much more of a pain than it is worth. I have found paper to work just fine for most contact printing and paper negative applications; and my enlargers, both the original LPLs as well as my newer LED modified ones are more than bright enough to get through the paper for decent exposure times.

Thanks for watching! Yes I am using the same Kodak Dektol in standard 1:2 dilution for both the film and paper.

I'm not sure I am understanding you in reference to the UV concerns. Sorry! Do you mean to just expose your cyanotype or other alt process image under the enlarger? if so, you could do that without a positive film but instead with just a regular negative ( Since Cyanotype is a negative process you need a negative to make a positive ) and yes the problem is that a standard enlarger does not really pump out much UV light at all, not nearly enough to expose a cyanotype in a reasonable amount of time. Though there are several folks working on and finding great success using UV bulbs and modifying enlargers to specifically print alt process images in just a couple minutes from standard negatives, cool stuff! Do you mean to put positive film in the enlarger and to print directly onto the ortho film? Yes this is possible! I very briefly mention this at 04:24 in this video. The problem would not be the light source but instead the relatively extreme contrast in reversal slide films compared to negative films. This compounded with the pretty high contrast of the ortho film would give a really intense contrast in the negative which would make it difficult to use for most alt processes. A slightly better option would be to make low contrast positive film from your negatives. You can do this by just making a low contrast contact sheet of your negatives onto rc paper, then cut and put those low contrast positive print pieces into the enlarger and print through the paper onto your ortho film. This would take time to expose but would work fine and give the same contrast levels as the process described in the video. You could also enlarge your say 35mm negs onto paper at the biggest size your enlarger can fit, for example if you had a 4x5 enlarger, you could print to that size then insert that positive print into the enlarger and print directly onto the ortho film. Of course you could contact print your neg film directly onto the ortho film and get very nice looking black and white slide film versions of your negative film, but again using this to then print ortho film negatives would yield quite extreme contrast. Hope this kind of answers your question! Sorry for the lengthy response, I like to use these comments as a way to record process notes for others to hopefully get some use out of!

@@richpence Thank-you for your detailed response. I'll have to go over it again to extract all the details. I guess what I was thinking is exposing directly from a positive onto a cyanotype paper on the baseboard. Of course, as you said, it would show up as a positive. Then, as you say, some are experimenting with UV lamps in the enlarger. I think many would like to try tthe cyanotype process, but don't want the hassle of spring-loaded contact frames and UV exposers. Thanks again.

Ahh yes I am understanding you. I think maybe actually like the simplicity of contact printing, and building a very simple frame is quite easy. I have a cyanotype video in the works that explores some very niche but interesting techniques. I'll include a little more detail about making a very easy and simple print frame suitable to clamp the neg and check exposure. Also, as a correction. You cannot use a positive piece of film to expose a cyanotype, you have to use a negative, so, even in a UV enlarger, You'd have to put a negative in it. Cyanotypes are a photo-negative process, so when exposed to light they turn dark blue and when covered stay white. Using a positive piece of film will result in a negative cyanotype.

This would be with standard 1:2 dilution. I have been experimenting recently with shooting ortho in camera. I tried higher dilutions ranging from 1:4-1:8, but was getting some weird blocky, almost solarized look to the mid tones. And my best luck has actually been a pre-flash, and then to rate it for maybe iso-25, and then to develop in standard dilution for 3-4 minutes in very dim red light. The trick is to not let the highlights ever be so dense that no light will get through when printing, explicitly for alt processes. So a shorter exposure, and then trying to make up the shadows with longer development has been working pretty well. Do you have any preferred dilutions or procedures?

Thanks! Hope it goes well! You can just use your standard paper developer. Here I used Dektol in standard 1:2 dilution. I have also used Sprint Print, LPD, Kodak Polymax T, and Ilford Multigrade developer and all of them work fine. Really the only thing to be careful about is using a fully red safelight and not an amber safelight.

You're welcome! Thanks for watching!

I am not sure. I do not have any experience with x ray films. I'd say just give it a try if you have some of the film. Otherwise you may also want to look at just using an rc paper negative, which work quite well for cyanotype although slowly. It would be the same steps as in this video, but instead of using ortho film for your final negative, you would contact print the rc positive print onto another piece of rc paper, giving a large paper negative.

Thanks for watching! You are diluting Dektol 1 part Stock to 30 parts water? Sorry if I have misread your comment, but 1:30 is wayyyy to much dilution for dektol. Dektol requires a 1 part stock to 2 parts water dilution, so 1:2, for use on darkroom papers and ortho film. Otherwise, you may be having a problem with your metering. Orthographic film is only sensitive to green and blue light, and not red light, which is different from your standard Panchromatic film which is sensitive to all light. It is possible that you are metering for for all waveforms of light, and so your film is underexposed since it is not seeing that red wavelength that your meter is. You can solve this by filtering your meter, or by testing and finding the optimal ISO setting, which may change depending on the type of light source, be it sunlight or artificial lighting. Check on youtube for "finding the iso of film test 4x5" and you should finds some Large format centered videos that will show you have to accurately rate the ISO of your ortho film. Good luck!

@@richpence Thanks for replying. The Massive Development chart had Dextol at 1:30. I tried a couple of sheets at 1:3 (125mls Dextol to 500mls H2O. The development by inspection was less than 20 seconds. I made up D76 at 1:3 and seemed to get good results at the recommended 7 minutes. I think I'LL stick with the D76. I brought my 8x10 primarily for wet plate collodion. I was looking for a cheap sheet film to play around with. I think I'll next try some panchromatic.

@@peter2712 Sorry, I think I was a little confused. You are using deXtol? I have never heard of it with the X in the name. Is it a film developer? I am using Kodak deKtol, with a K in the name, which is a darkroom paper developer. Your DeXtol and my Kodak DeKtol are likely two different chemicals. Arista brand (what brand of ortho sheets are you using?), and most other Sheet Ortho films are designed to be used the same as you would use paper in the darkroom, as far as I'm aware, and developed in the same paper developing chemistry used for darkroom papers. My ortho sheets develop in around 1 minute, similar to RC photo papers. On Massive developing chart, I am assuming that they are rating their development on ortho films designed for shooting in camera, such as Rollei Ortho 25 roll films. This is a bit different than the sheet based ortho films I am using. Anyway, if it is working then that is great! Keep on using what works! But if you have a darkroom., try using your standard darkroom paper developer on your ortho sheets. I would love to see your results!

I’ve always been weary of reversal process on paper. I have not found a method that I feel is easily accessible or not worrisome for toxicity or requiring PPE. If the light path is a concern. How about this instead to Alleviate the worry: Enlarge or contact print the original negative onto another sheet of film (I would recommend regular film for this, not ortho as it’s very high contrast, but ortho would do as well) say cut a piece of 4x5 film in half, or cut sections of 120 film. Enlarge the neg onto a 6x7 or so section of the film. Then dev. You’ll have now a positive piece of film, which can print directly onto paper / ortho film to create your variable size neg. It’s a little more difficult of a process, but I’ve had great luck doing it as well as just contact printing film onto ortho to have a nicely contrasted positive film to work with. I don’t know of any sources to buy ortho film in the UK or Europe. Ilford does make an ortho film for negatives, but it is grossly overpriced. I would suggest just trying a paper neg first, it’ll be a slow exposure, but would eventually make an image.

@@richpence that will have to do for the time being. I will use the idea of paper as an interpositive (I need interpositives for gelatine tissue transfer), but I am worried of the loss of detail and tonality. I will experiment. Btw, subbed, your videos are great. Keep the good work!

@@LaViejaConsolada thanks very much! I’m hoping to make many more videos and even some darkroom live streams! I’m afraid I don’t know very much about Gelatin transfers so I will have to look them up!

I don’t claim that the negatives are perfect, they are far from it. I’m just trying to share what can be possible using fully analog methods with materials readily available today. I am not convinced that a digital negative is “higher resolution” than an ortho negative. Digital inkjet printers really cap out at 600dpi (even that is wishful thinking), which an analog piece of film far surpasses (not that mine are the highest res possible, they aren’t, but I would certainty argue that analog prints have higher resolutions than digital) and digital are prone to many problems that cannot be solved as simply as problems in the darkroom can. And it is certainly not cheaper if you don’t have a very nice (and expensive) digital printer. And for analog negatives a very good scanning setup to get your images into the computer, another necessity, in the first place. I think digital negs can be great, but if working with analog negatives, and if my goal is to stay as analog as possible, it’s not very helpful to argue for a totally different technology and material.

I have throughly tested using a scrap piece of enlarging paper to match the paper height and have not found it to make any difference for prints above a 6x9 inch image, above that, especially into 11x14 or 16x20, the thickness of a piece of paper on a stopped down enlarging lens had not made any difference I’ve ever seen. So I skip that step for rc prints and ortho film, for fiber and for 8x10 or smaller I use a scrap piece.