My first real printing

[kully]

I decided on an evening course rather than GAS in the autumn and on monday we did enlarging for the first time.

Yesterday I popped in by myself with negatives and a pack of 5x7 paper.

Wow - I've never enjoyed being in an educational establishment as much as those two and a half hours.

Previously I'd been paying for enlargements or scanning on a Nikon V ED. HP5+ at 1600 looks so much better for grain and I also found that the CV 40/1.4 maybe a little too sharp for portraits.

How I just need to remember stopping the lens down after focussing and not getting a weird headache from the safelighting.

I cannot recommend this enough to fellow film+scanner bods like me - the joyless periods of waiting for the scanning to finish are gone - if you muck up yo do so because it was your fault. And. it's so great to be away from computers.

 

[markinlondon]

I cannot recommend this enough to fellow film+scanner bods like me - the joyless periods of waiting for the scanning to finish are gone - if you muck up yo do so because it was your fault. And. it's so great to be away from computers.

You've hit it on the head there, Kully. Real photographic processes from start to finish and no computers involved anywhere. It's the real thing!

 

[kully]

Cheers Mark, that's is the main thing, now I'm dreading the pain of setting up a darkroom in the loft when I finish the course...

If it's not too rude, I have a two questions:

1) Do I need to make new test strips to determine exposure if I change the contrast filter?

2) I noticed that for photos on the same roll taken in the same lighting (thereabouts) I was using the same exposure time - could I extrapolate from this and work out an exposure time for one photo and use that for the rest of the photos of a roll?

3) Has anyone used Ilford RC warmtone?

 

[markinlondon]

Not rude at all, how do you think I learned this stuff 🙂

1. You should make new test strips but, in practice, the test strip should be used to determine the highlights, the contrast grade determines the shadow density so it's not essential. I tend not to.

2. If your negative exposures are consistent, your work prints should all use about the same time and contrast grade. A final print may want a bit of tweaking to get it just right though.

RC warmtone s a very nice paper and definitely the way to go if you want to use toners or get the full effect from the Ilford WT and CT developers. I've used it with selenium quite a bit and like the results.

This is scanned from RCWT in selenium for a short bath, pulled before any colour change.

This is RCWT in fotospeed sepia.

 

[JoeV]

Cheers Mark, that's is the main thing, now I'm dreading the pain of setting up a darkroom in the loft when I finish the course...

If it's not too rude, I have a two questions:

1) Do I need to make new test strips to determine exposure if I change the contrast filter?

2) I noticed that for photos on the same roll taken in the same lighting (thereabouts) I was using the same exposure time - could I extrapolate from this and work out an exposure time for one photo and use that for the rest of the photos of a roll?

3) Has anyone used Ilford RC warmtone?

First, welcome to the wonderful world of silver printing.

The data sheet that comes with my Ilford printing filters shows that you should add one additional stop of exposure for filters above grade 4. So, you can use the same exposure while changing filters, as long as you stay at 4 or below. Above 4, just double the printing time (or open the enlarger lens one full stop, which could also reduce depth of focus at the easel).

For quick working prints, you can probably get by with the same print exposure times for the negatives that appear to be similar in density. For a finely tuned finished print, you may find it necessary to do custom exposure times, possibly with burning/dodging as needed.

But you don't have to get that complicated with printing as a beginner. Just enjoy being able to make "real" prints. And post some for us to see.😉

 

[PlantedTao]

Congrats kully...printing is so much fun and the reason I love it most is because it gets me away from this machine. I'm leashed to it at work, so the last thing I want to do is spend more time on it (of course what am I doing now 🙂)

I think learning about how to take a photograph was a lot easier than how to learn printing...there is so much to learn and I feel that this is an art all in itself.

My only advice for a beginner, like myself, is to take the time to take very good notes and not get rushed. Do test strips in the beginning all the time and learn what the slight variations do, if anything. Write detailed notes on the backs of your prints...I'm finding that later (weeks) after looking at a print I find areas to improve on that print and want to go back and try again. If you have good notes it does to take any time to start where you last left the print and you can begin to make modifications with little time invested.
just my penny's worth
cheers.

Jason

 

[Solinar]

Another congratulations - I love B/W printing because it is photography in reverse. - From exposure to pulling from the fixer takes 3 minutes. - B/W paper is much cheaper than its archival inkjet counter part even before figuring in the cost of the ink.