Digital BW, The Print

Well, with all the various scanning suggestions for very dense negatives, my experience has been
that none of them really work well, including drum scans. I've a collection of a couple dozen 
negatives waiting for me to get around to using a chemical reducer, which IMO is the best, and 
probably fastest  way to save those negs. 

There's lots of info on the internet for reducers, but most of the googled inquiries turn out to be 
lectures of how to expose your negatives, rather than fixing the already dense ones.

However, if you decide to do it yourself, the most common process is a combination of
Farmer's Reducer (which is basically Potassium Ferricyanide), and Sodium Thiosulfate (which is
hypo/fixer).  You would want to use only that, and not a rapid fixer or one with hardener in it.

The same chemistry will work as a subtractive reducer (removing equal amounts of silver from
both the highlight and shadow areas) OR as a proportional reducer ( removing more from the
overexposed or overdeveloped highlights than from the shadow area.

The subtractive method is a singe solution of Farmer's Reducer with Sodium Thiosulfate, and the
proportional  method is two trays - one with each chemical, and the process can go back and 
forth until the densities are correct. Diluting both solutions with water, will slow the process, which
is helpful, especially when one is first trying the process. Finally, one would wash the reduced 
negatives for about 15 minutes, then add a couple drops of Photoflo to get a streak free dry surface.

You do not need a darkroom - my plan is to use the kitchen sink! You do need rubber gloves
and a couple or three darkroom trays - plastic or stainless steel.

Finally - there's tons written about this process. I stumbled on one book called the Elements of
B&W Printing by Carson Graves. He has a chapter called "Salvage Techniques - negative 
reducers". I'm not connected in any way with the author or publishers, but it looks like a 
helpful publication - accessible both from the internet and bookstores.

These days, the best source I know of for purchasing the chemistry is Photographers' Formulary.

Hope this helps.

Clayton Price
www.claytonpricephotographer.com

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