mike_ricca

<p>I'm looking to create my own photo paper for a personal project and had a question or two about the process.<br>

In my searching I've found two recipes (<a href="http://jhartnett.gawsolutions.us/diy-projects/chemical/77-homemade-photo-emulsion.html"><strong>one</strong></a>, <a href="http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Emulsion/emulsion.html"><strong>two</strong></a>) for DIY emulsion and was just wondering — could I take my homemade emulsion, coat paper with it, and then expose directly onto the paper (likely with a LF camera)?<br>

I realize that exposing directly to paper requires much longer exposures, but could it be done?<br>

Recipe #1 is applied to canvas so I assume that paper could be used just as easily, but the resultant image is pretty rough and I'm not sure if that's due to the canvas or the emulsion soup.<br>

Recipe #2 yields a much cleaner image, but the instructions call for coating <em>glass</em> and I don't know if it'd work on paper just as easily.<br>

Does anyone here have any experience with making their own photo paper and/or directly exposing an image to said paper? How did it turn out?<br>

Thanks!</p>

<p>Tim</p>

<p>I actually didn't use A3. I have no idea what European sizes measure out to and the box didn't mention A3 so I just went with custom size. And yeah, it could well be a paper size / margin issue, but at the same time I used identical print settings in Photoshop and got it right on the first try so I'm just gonna stick to that for now. At $1.20 a sheet, I don't really feel like experimenting in LR when PS works fine. I'll just use LR for my 8.5x11 printing. :)</p>

<p>- mike</p>

<p>Yup. It was set to 8.1x12.2 and I was getting an 8x11 image.</p>

<p>But that was just the <em>first</em> problem. The bigger problem was, as you can see from the photos of the prints [http://i.imgur.com/P96XJxU.jpg], it was <strong>cropping</strong> the image as well, and cropping it completely arbitrarily. The screenshot of the Print module shows the full image, yet as you can see from the resultant prints, I wasn't getting that image at <em>all</em>. And it wasn't even consistent, to boot.</p>

<p>Like I said, it's moot now anyway. I'm not gonna burn more paper (@ $1.20 per) just to try and figure this out. I'll just stick to PS for my large prints and only use LR for my 8.5x11s, which I never have issues with.</p>

<p>As I explained in the sentence <em>immediately following</em> the one you quoted, I increased the print size a little (which is why the screenshot shows 12.2" instead of 12") because the photo came out to 8x11 instead of 8x12. Also, I said "similar" and not "exact" (I specifically chose the word "similar" in case someone might nitpick that 12.2 != 12).</p>

<p>Custom paper size was properly set and all the LR settings were fine. In fact the paper/printer settings were identical to the ones I eventually used in Photoshop, which printed the photo out perfectly.</p>

<p>I'm sure it's something to do with the paper size, as I've never had an issue printing to 8.5x11 in LR. But I also know LR printing has always been a little temperamental so I'm just gonna not ever print to 11.7x16.5 in LR again; next time I need to do it I'll just take it into PS.</p>

<p>Took it into Photoshop, got the print right on the first try.<br>

.</p>

<p>I am completely stumped on this one. I cropped an image to 4x6 in the Develop module, went to the printmodule to print it at 8x12, and haven't gotten a SINGLE correct print so far.</p>

<p>I've so far made five prints. All of them have been cropped to varying degrees by the Print module and the print sizes have been way smaller than LR Preview tells me they should be.</p>

<p>Per this Develop Module screenshot [http://i.imgur.com/7NMDj1L.png] you can see that the image is cropped to 4x6, and the Print Module [http://i.imgur.com/qr2DRnX.png] shows a similar size. NOTE: Originally I printed at 8x12 and the photo came out as 8x11 for some ungodly reason so I increased the print size little.</p>

<p>As you can see from the results [http://i.imgur.com/P96XJxU.jpg] every image was cropped somehow and completely inconsistently. I tried centering the photo on the paper, putting it in the corner, nada. Still comes out cropped. The only one that came close was the very first one (trimmed, to the side) but it was 11" tall and too short for my 8x12" mat window.</p>

<p>I'm using an EPSON 3800 stocked with EPSON PREMIUM LUSTER 11.7x16.5 set up as a custom size in Lightroom. Scale is 100% and as far as I can tell from the print preview, everything looks great. Until I print and it comes out cropped.</p>

<p>I've so far wasted about $5 in paper and I don't wanna think how much in ink. I've never run into this problem printing to 8.5x11.</p>

<p>Does anyone know what gives and how to fix it?</p>

*facepalm*

 

I'm an utter moron. You're right. They're exactly that -- lights in the background. I'd forgotten that they had strung Christmas lights, but reviewing the negatives now, that's exactly what they are. I had thought Eric was being facetious in his reply (hence my own quip), but he was right on the money.

 

Boy do I feel sheepish now.

Interesting. I gave my camera more than a few blasts with compressed air a few days ago (when I pulled it off my shelf for the first time in months) and thought I'd cleaned it sufficiently, but I guess I hadn't.

 

Unfortunately, I have a roll of film in there now so I can't clean it. But on the bright side, I can use this as an exercise in elimination. When I develop this test roll, I'll be sure to knock the cannister against the counter a lot. If I still see spots (especially in this abundance -- over half my photos in the last roll were spot-ridden), then that will at least rule out the bubble theory.

 

Thanks so much for looking this up, Leon. I'll give my C220 a good thorough cleaning and see how things fare.

Actually, I was thinking maybe I was just haunted by dozens of really tiny ghosts.

I did that, both during the developer and fixer steps. I suppose I might not've banged it against the counter hard enough or long enough, though. I'll try to knock it harder with my next test roll. Thanks!

Don't know why the steps didn't carriage return, so here they are again:

<br><br>

1. DEVELOP - HC-110 (B) @ 70° - 6m with 10s agitation every 30s <br>

2. RINSE - Tap water for 5s <br>

3. STOP BATH - 45s <br>

4. FIXER - Lauder 763 Rapid Fixer - 3m with 10s agitation every 30s <br>

5. WASH - 10m under running tap <br>

6. PHOTO-FLO - 30s<br>

After doing a bit of research, it sounds like there are a number of reasons why

spots might appear on negatives. I'm not sure, however, which one I'm guilty of.

 

It's been a few years since I've done any developing, and this was a test roll.

The film was a roll of Tri-X 400TX 120. Here's the process I used:

 

1. DEVELOP - HC-110 (B) @ 70? - 6m with 10s agitation every 30s

2. RINSE - Tap water for 5s

3. STOP BATH - 45s

4. FIXER - Lauder 763 Rapid Fixer - 3m with 10s agitation every 30s

5. WASH - 10m under running tap

6. PHOTO-FLO - 30s

 

I feel like I didn't fix it long enough, but everything I've read online said

that 3-4m was ideal for the Lauder 763 Rapid Fixer.

 

I'm sure I screwed up somewhere, but I don't know where. Like I said, it's been

years since I've done any developing and the list of steps above was culled from

various sites and board posts.<div></div>