"I often do split burning and dodging,"
This is something I've not heard of yet, but it sounds interesting.
After I learned of the process of Split Contrast Printing I only had one day to play with it. My negative was a 4x5 that was slightly under-exposed but still had some beautiful texture. Here's what I did:
My filter pack started with "00" contrast filters and went up in half step increments to a "5". I started with a "0" and made a test strip. I went across the faces of the two models to use their skin tones for my base. I selected the appropriate time of 3 seconds.
I took a second strip and exposed this entire strip for 3 seconds with the "0" filter.
I then changed to the "5" filter and made a full test strip across it. After developing this strip I selected the appropriate time of 5 seconds, again going across the faces.
Now having the times for each filter I made the complete print. First, I expose the paper to the "0" filter for 3 seconds, then change filters to the "5" and expose for another 5 seconds, then develop as normal.
What I got was all the detail I could handle and all the contrast I could get without losing the details. To me, this was a faster development than possibly running multiple test strips to find the right single filter. Now, I also understand that if I were doing this on a more regular basis and had all my shooting and developing workflow down to a science, I would probably know what contrast filter to use without making multiple test strips to get it right. For me though, this was a faster method to get everything I could from the print on one go.
A scan of the print doesn't do much justice to the actual paper in my hands, but here it is anyway:
