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RaglanSurf

RaglanSurf

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Nick
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ive got a 6x6 neg that I want printed 12"x12" has anybody had anything printed that sort of size? Did you have a'proper' print done from the net or did you get it printed from a digital file? Oh, who have you used that you could recommend?
 
RaglanSurf said:
ive got a 6x6 neg that I want printed 12"x12" has anybody had anything printed that sort of size? Did you have a'proper' print done from the net or did you get it printed from a digital file? Oh, who have you used that you could recommend?
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For printing scans of my 6x6cm film photos, I use Sam's Photo Lab, as they offer 1:1 print sizes. I usually print 8"x8" for albums, but have a few on the wall that I printed 12"x12". The quality is good and the prices are very competitive.

http://samsphotolab.com/what-we-do/budget-prints/
 
For digital prints I have used dscolourlabs.co.uk including 12*12 prints made from a cropped scan of a 35mm negative. I have been very happy with the results and the costs are a fraction of some labs.

I have also produced square prints in the darkroom, but it is almost impossible to buy square darkroom paper and therefore the process involves wasting a large amount of paper. For a 12*12 print you would need to use 12*16 paper - if you cut it before printing then you can use the rest for test strips.
 
I also use DS Colour labs and I often go for their more expensive papers. Last time I had a 12" x 18" print on Smooth Art Silk 300, the mono shot of Beeston Castle, and it came out really well. Prices are competetive and it was here within 5 days.

Andy
 
Kevin Allan said:
For digital prints I have used dscolourlabs.co.uk including 12*12 prints made from a cropped scan of a 35mm negative. I have been very happy with the results and the costs are a fraction of some labs.

I have also produced square prints in the darkroom, but it is almost impossible to buy square darkroom paper and therefore the process involves wasting a large amount of paper. For a 12*12 print you would need to use 12*16 paper - if you cut it before printing then you can use the rest for test strips.
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To add to the cutting bit, 12x16 cut down to 12x12 leaves you with a strip that's 12x4 - perfect for 2 6x4 enprints (for 35mm or other 3x2 formats).

As for larger printing, my local photo/camera shop has a large format printer (IIRC, 24" wide) and charge me per inch when I get my panoramas (or is it panoramae?!) done there. Of course, that's from digital files but it should be easy enough to get a 6x6 neg or slide scanned at a high enough resolution for a 12" square print.
 
Andysnap said:
I also use DS Colour labs and I often go for their more expensive papers. Last time I had a 12" x 18" print on Smooth Art Silk 300, the mono shot of Beeston Castle, and it came out really well. Prices are competetive and it was here within 5 days.

Andy
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Andy, did you have any problem getting what you saw on your monitor to come out on the print? I'm printing b&w but don't want it to come out too dark.
 
Nod said:
To add to the cutting bit, 12x16 cut down to 12x12 leaves you with a strip that's 12x4 - perfect for 2 6x4 enprints (for 35mm or other 3x2 formats).

As for larger printing, my local photo/camera shop has a large format printer (IIRC, 24" wide) and charge me per inch when I get my panoramas (or is it panoramae?!) done there. Of course, that's from digital files but it should be easy enough to get a 6x6 neg or slide scanned at a high enough resolution for a 12" square print.
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I don't have a problem scanning to a decent quality, I'm just trying work out whether it would be worth getting a traditional print done.
 
skysh4rk said:
For printing scans of my 6x6cm film photos, I use Sam's Photo Lab, as they offer 1:1 print sizes. I usually print 8"x8" for albums, but have a few on the wall that I printed 12"x12". The quality is good and the prices are very competitive.

http://samsphotolab.com/what-we-do/budget-prints/
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I tied Sam's for a black and white print and it came back with a slight colour cast. So I had the print redone by Ilford and it came back perfect tones of black and white. I have recently had a digital scan printed by Ilford at 10"x 10" and the quality looks good, to me at least.
 
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I always find with any prints I hve done that they come out darker than expected so I always lift the overall brightness by about 5-10% before uploading to their site. I also print out an A4 copy here before making any changes just to give me an idea as too how much lifting is needed. Not an exact science but it seems to work. They will print straight from the neg as well but I haven't had any done this way as yet. I did use them to get some film devved but both times I had to phone them up to chase them, over 3 weeks if I remember correctly. Funny because their printing service is super fast.
 
RaglanSurf said:
Andy, did you have any problem getting what you saw on your monitor to come out on the print? I'm printing b&w but don't want it to come out too dark.
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I've just had a dozen B&W prints back from dscl and they look fine, I've not done a critical analysis of the print to the screen but there are no casts.

I got some 8x10 done from rb67 negs on the V500 and they look fine, what's the most you've enlarged a scan to?
 
i sent a 5x4 neg off to Illford and tbh was a bit dissapointed with it. Not ilfords fault but they had to just print from the neg as is with no processing so it looked a bit flat. Much better just scan the neg, adjust it to taste and then print from the file.

I print all my own now but when i did send them away i used ProAm Imaging. Cheap as chips and good quality prints. its an automated system though so you have to set up a zip file in a certain way which is a little bit of a faff but once done i never had a complaint with them.
 
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I've had films developed and contacts made, normally by a local company (Colourstream in Brighton; I hop on a bus outside my house and hop off outside their premises). But I can't recall having any enlargements made for me since the 1960s (and early 1960s at that).

If people print digitally, you may get a colour cast. Colour darkroom prints are difficult to make (compared to black and white) but digitally the reverse applies.

On brightness - no help to you, but I find that the print preview in the Epson printer driver gives me a very good idea of what the print will look like, and I adjust at that point if necessary.

The largest print size I've made is A2, but that was from 5x4. The greatest degree of enlargement was A3 from a 6x7 negative. I only ever made two prints at 10x8 from 35mm that I was happy with technically, so I'm not counting that (and they were conventional darkroom prints).
 
Well I'll be sending a digital file tomorrow, it's a 6x6 b&w image so hopefully no colour cast but then how would I know?
 
Ilford only print on their black and white paper, if you do use them you can at least be sure that there will be no colour cast.
 
I'd love to have a go at a 12x12 for you Nick.

Unfortunately that would mean you putting your trust in RM with the safe passage of irreplaceable negs.

I'm absolutely up for it if you are
 
joxby said:
I'd love to have a go at a 12x12 for you Nick.

Unfortunately that would mean you putting your trust in RM with the safe passage of irreplaceable negs.

I'm absolutely up for it if you are
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Thanks for the offer John, I may well take you up on that.

s162216 said:
If you want to try a hand optical print from the negative then Palm Labs do them, and their printer will dodge/burn, grade etc manually to get the best print (you can make descriptions as to the sort of look you want and they'll try to work to that). Look at the "Traditional B&W reprints" section at the bottom of http://www.palmlabs.co.uk/film-processing-services/black-and-white-film
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Thanks Samuel, I've used Palm Labs in the past and been pleased with their processing so it's another option.
 
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