Digital to film negative

[Onerider]

I've seen plenty of info about going from negative to digital, but nothing on digital to negative. I'm sure it's possible but maybe not popular. Would it be worth the effort do you think?

 

[480sparky]

What advantage(s) do you think you would gain?

 

[Onerider]

I don't want to do it. I was just curious about the ability to do it and the pros and cons of it.

 

[Josh66]

What advantage(s) do you think you would gain?

Because then it would be film. Duh.




I know digital transfer to film is pretty common for video (for archival reasons), but I haven't really heard much about it for still images. I don't see any reason it couldn't be done though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film-out

 

[Light Guru]

I've seen plenty of info about going from negative to digital, but nothing on digital to negative. I'm sure it's possible but maybe not popular. Would it be worth the effort do you think?

It may be worth the effort but it depends on what you want to do with the printed negative.

What advantage(s) do you think you would gain?

The advantages are really only there if you want to do some of the alternative printing processes where you do contact printing. Processes like cyanotype, salt printing, etc.

 

[table1349]

Yes it can be done.

Step 1. Buy one of these:


Step 2. Get some of this.


Step 3. Buy one of these.


Step 4. Print digital photo, put on stand and take photo with film camera.

Step 5. Develop film and print photo from negative.

Step 6. Read this book:

 

[Derrel]

Back in the early 2000's there used to be self-contained machines that converted digital images to film. They were never really all that popular. I recall only ONE photographer in my area who actually bought one. My memory's not good on this, but I thought they were called "film burners" or something like that. These were for digital image file conversion to 35mm FILM storage. I tried a number of brief Google searches, but today, the idea is mostly about going the other way, from film to digital, so despite repeated search strings, I got a lot of useless hits. THe majority of digital-to-film now seems centered on cinematic conversions, called "film-out", where the goal is to convert digitally shot cinema productions to film prints.

FILM Recorder, that's the term I believe, now that I've had a couple more minutes to think about it.

 

[table1349]

Derrel,

I remember what you are talking about. We tried one at work several years ago before going completely digital. The results produced for the cost incurred were defiantly not worth it.

 

[Ysarex]

Yep, Derrel remembers right -- they were called film recorders. I used to have one. The serious film recorder didn't take the digital image back to dinky little 35mm film, but rather to 70mm or even sheet film. Here's a photo of an agfa alto recorder:



Why do it? That's easy. Let's say you need to make 50 11x14 B&W prints from a film negative and each print should be identical to each other print. I've recently been working this summer scanning some old negs that I was unable to successfully print back in the darkroom. With a scanner and Photoshop I can combine multiple scans of difficult negs. Here's an example:



If you had that neg in an enlarger and made a print so that the central section of the waterfall looked as it does here the entire rock face of the fall would be solid black and the waterfall in the background would be pure paper white. Burn and doge you say? I was really good at that but I couldn't beat this neg. Every once in awhile I got close, but 50 all the same -- not going to happen. The image you see here was from three separate scans all masked together in Photoshop. If I could take that digital image back to film, I could take that neg into the darkroom and knock out all 50 prints easily.

But why go back into the darkroom at all? Well, this is 21st century America and so yeah, there's no reason. No one today would value a b&w silver print properly processed to last at least a millennium when they could have a print made in ink that will fade away in a small fraction of that time. No more need for film recorders.

Joe

 

[peter27]

I was reading about this very thing in Fine Art Printer magazine recently. Basically you reverse the digital image, print it on an OHP transparency sheet and then make a contact print from this.

 

[vintagesnaps]

It's possible, but I don't know how difficult it would be; I'd like to try it someday because there are some of my digital images that I'd like to have in a film negative format for prints (especially since I've done darkroom work).

There's info. on the Alternative Processes website - I searched Articles and 'negative' was the closest choice so some of the articles that came up in the search are about digital negs while others seem to be on other topics.

I've read info. by/about Mike Ware in the UK, and Dan Burkholder, who are a couple of photographers who do alt. processes and digital negatives.

Negatives « Categories « AlternativePhotography.com
Dan Burkholder Home

 

[unpopular]

I personally have daydreams of a general purpose, monochromatic exposure unit using a high power blue laser which could expose film, paper and dichromated colloids. But, I think we've had enough pipe dreams around here for one afternoon.

 

[ann]

There are several methods, google Dan Burkholder for his book on how to do this.

Many folks who do a lot of alternative processes do this all the time. they make a negative a the size they wish to make the print. Which takes away the need to drag around 8x10 and/or larger format cameras.

 

[bianni]

There were several service bureaus here in the Philippines years back that had film recorders. There were no large format printers then so we had to scan transparencies to make composites in Photoshop 3 to be printed photographically to 40"X60" Duratrans, made by Kodak for use in backlighted displays. We ordered 4x5 color negs from the composed digital files.

 

[Orrin]

But why go back into the darkroom at all? Well, this is 21st century America and so yeah, there's no reason. No one today would value a b&w silver print properly processed to last at least a millennium when they could have a print made in ink that will fade away in a small fraction of that time. No more need for film recorders.

Joe

This is the best reason for doing it. A silver negative can be viewed with the naked eye for many years in the future.

Digital images require a 'device' to view them that may or may not be available in the future.
I fear that a lot of current history will be lost in obsolete formats & storage devices and not be available to future generations.

There is at least one company in the USA that still will make film copies of your digital work..https://www.gammatech.com/