Rant: My printing abilities suck

[Merkin]

david- I have to respectfully disagree with starting out on fiber based papers. not only does it add the need for hypo clear, the washing is more difficult, and then you also need to press them. if someone is having trouble getting a decent working print, they should, in my opinion, stick to resin coated paper, and once they can produce a better-than-working print with the RC, that is the time to switch to fiber.

 

[rxmd]

• Print on fiber-based paper as much as you can. RC is great for contact sheets and quick proof prints, but fiber is much nicer to work with for fine prints, and the difference in quality comes through in the final product as well.

Here I disagree, but this is mainly a matter of personal taste. I find it much easier and more rewarding to start with a good RC paper. This is for two reasons: you get feedback more quickly, because you don't have to wait ages for your test strips and prints to dry; and drying the prints is much easier. Since in the beginning one should make lots and lots of prints, not having to dry every one of them in the drying press or not having to glue them on glass plates for air drying is a real timesaver. With fiber-based paper one tends to make fewer prints because it's slower, but in the beginning I find at least I didn't have enough experience to get good results from fewer prints. Fiber-based prints look nicer, but I spent something like two years only printing on RC paper.

But this is mainly a matter of personal taste. I like the look of some RC papers. For someone who doesn't, switching over to fiber-based papers earlier might be a good idea.

• Be aware that a lot of people end up overexposing and underdeveloping their prints. If your print is in the developer for 30 seconds and you pull it out to shove it in the stop bath, something's goofy.

Exactly. Paper wants to be developed to the end. Unlike film, it's difficult to overdevelop paper. For the beginning keep it in the developer until nothing happens anymore.

• Finally, and this is the single most important and valuable thing I think I have to say, KEEP GOOD RECORDS. Go to a university book store and pick up a bound lab notebook. Keep notes about everything in your printing process. Make notes for every printing session. Keep track of all your variables. In time, you will be able to identify and better control the variables that are at work in your process, whether they be good things or bad. And, if something unexpected happens (again, good or bad), you're a lot more likely to be able to figure out what it is in short order.

This is in fact absolutely spot on. When I started printing I wrote the exposure parameters (f-stop, time, gradation) on the back of every single print I made.

I also made whole series of prints with slighly different settings on each to compare. If you've got 25 prints from the same negative with five different gradations and exposure settings each you get a pretty accurate idea how exposure works.

 

[David R Munson]

Fair enough on the disagreement about RC vs FB paper. It does come down to personal preference. I do think FB gets an undeserved reputation for being hard to work with, though, and I suspect a lot of people end up avoiding working with it for the wrong reason, and that's just unfortunate. It's not for everyone, though, and likely not the best thing for the beginning stages of learning to print.

I still adore the stuff.

 

[cmdrzed]

Thanks for all of the support and suggestions. Lots of good stuff here that I will definitely incorporate into my process.

A few thing I want to mention:
David White: Thank you. I think a light bulb came on after reading your post on contact sheets!
Pickett Wilson: I think you hit the nail on the head. Right now my expectations exceed my abilities.

I also agree that I should stick to rc papers for now. I love the way fiber prints look but they are a pain in the arse to dry. I have printed on fiber and ended up with a few nice prints but they pale in comparison to the amount of paper I wasted.

 

[David_Manning]

It may have been touched upon and if I missed it in the thread, I apologize...but strive for consistency in your chemistry. If your dilutions are different each time (or your times in the trays) you're working against all your good technique on the enlarger.

 

[Al Kaplan]

I suppose that I'm not the only one here who first learned with fiber based paper because RC paper had yet to be invented. With either type of paper you'll need to learn how to contort your hands into all sorts of shapes to burn in various areas in the print, and have an assortment of little "paddles" in various sizes and shapes for dodging selected areas. These can be made of coat hanger wire and small pieces of thin cardboard, all painted black.

You'll find that most images can be best printed by using various filters for certain areas of the print. Also, some printers use only two filters ALL THE TIME for EVERY print. They make one exposure through the highest contrast filter and one through the lowest, adjusting relative times to get the intermediate contrast grades.

Many printers burn in through a lower contrast filter to get some tone in the brightest areas. That's the "quick 'n dirty" way, but oft times those brighter areas are already blocked up and a bit flat. Taking the time to burn in through a higher contrast filter will put a bit more sparkle in your print. Another possibility is to just give a slight second exposure to the whole print through that low contrast filter, just enough to put some density there. It will have about NO effect on the mid-tones and shadows. Likewise, on occasion your best print for mid-tones and brighter areas might lack punch in the blacks. A very brief exposure through your highest contrast filter should give you great blacks while having amost no effect on the lighter areas.

Whenever possible (yard sales, camera store "junk boxes") buy used filters. They're not all the same! Ilford makes , or used to anyway, a #00 (double zero) which was available seperately but not part of the set. DuPont made great filters. They're the company that first marketed variable contrast paper. The Varilour set from the late sixties (but not the earlier Varigam) incorporated a bit of neutral density so that if you find the correct exposure for your brightest areas you can adjust contrast without having to figure out exposure times for the other filters. Grades 1 through 3 all print at the same time, grade 4 requires exactly double. Just push the button on your Time-O-Lite twice. The filters work the same with other brands.

Go buy a few 250 sheet boxes of paper, go in the darkroom, and play!

 

[rxmd]

Whenever possible (yard sales, camera store "junk boxes") buy used filters. They're not all the same! Ilford makes , or used to anyway, a #00 (double zero) which was available seperately but not part of the set. DuPont made great filters. They're the company that first marketed variable contrast paper. The Varilour set from the late sixties (but not the earlier Varigam) incorporated a bit of neutral density so that if you find the correct exposure for your brightest areas you can adjust contrast without having to figure out exposure times for the other filters. Grades 1 through 3 all print at the same time, grade 4 requires exactly double. Just push the button on your Time-O-Lite twice.

If you buy new fiters today this is how practically all of them work. A new Ilford set today contains 12 filters with #0 to #5 in half-grade increments, plus #00. Exposure times are constant, except 4 onward which need twice the time. Extremely comfortable.

What you describe with printing twice, once at the lowest and once at the highest density, with various times to set final contrast, is exactly what is commonly called "splitgrade". I printed practically only that way over the last three years or so. The advantage is that you get all those intermediate gradations (say grade 3.25) and you can be very selective in which areas you want to emphasize through contrast. It has its difficulties, too. Test strips often look unintuitive, you have to be very careful not to move the enlarger head the slightest bit when changing filters, etc. It's a bit tricky to learn and understand, too. I guess for a beginner it's better to start off with the traditional filtering technique.

 

[Steve_F]

Right now my expectations exceed my abilities.

Guess what - as your abilities catch up with your expectations, your expectations head off into the sunset - you never quite get there.

There was a TV documentary with Terry O'Neill and he said words to the effect - You're always looking to improve a shot, it's never there, always room for improvement.

My wife looked at me and said "That explains a lot"



Happy printing - I started on RC and now will only use FB. You probably don't want to here this, but you will get pretty close - eventually


Best of luck,

Steve.

 

[cmdrzed]

Thanks everyone. I just finished a roll of Fomapan 100 and will go through the entire process shortly. I used my IIIc with incident readings from my Digisix light meter.

I will also keep all of the tips in mind once I get to the printing phase. It's good to know that I am not alone in the process. Hopefully I will have something to post for everyone to see.