Developers/time &temps for 4x5 copy negs.

I going to copy some 16x20 B&W prints on 4x5 sheet film. Haven't done this in

a long while but do know that if exposure/developer procedures are wrong I

could end up with a "too contrasty" negative. So (answering my own question) I

think I have to overexpose a little and underdevelope a little? Which film/dev

combo would be best? I'd like to use a slow film around 125 ASA. I'm going to

use the copy negs to post on a web site and also to make 16x20 prints to match

the originals that I copied. Any advise would be very helpful. Thanks, Russ

In my experience, 'normal' exposure and development on conventional film creates a negative that is too soft. You see, the range of tones to render has already been reduced in the print. Start with TMAX 100 at ISO200 (incident reading) and overdevelop 20% in D76 1:1 and adjust from there.

My development was set up using a grey scale reference and I use that time for all work. It really amounts to box speed after checking for dark separation and develope so the highlits separate and do no go grey or block to pure white.

 

Most any film can be made to work fairly well, but Commercial copy film was made for this purppose. Another casualty of the digi age.

Ilford used to have a pdf on copying, but I can't find it on their current web site. Maybe Kodak have one. I copied some B&W prints onto 4x5 Tri-X a few years ago. I exposed "normally" and developed "normally" and I found that, although I can make a quite nice print of the resulting negatives, the shadow details are compressed (beyond the compression that is in the original print).

 

If I had the opportunity to do this again, I would use a film with a reputation for having a very straight characteristic curve, like TMax100, and I would expose more to ensure that what shadow detail exists on the print would be above the foot of the film. (By "foot" I mean the low contrast densities before the straight line part of the curve). This will not result in blown out highlights, because there is just not that much range in the original print. If the resulting negative looks denser than normal, it won't matter. You will have extracted as much detail as you can.