Taking Control Of The Printing Process (the practice)

In my last post I briefly outlined Bruce Dobbin's darkroom printing method and my intention to use it . I can happily report I did use it last week and found it very useful . Rather than follow it slavishly I customised it a little . The image I wanted to try it on was the image above spoken about in "Square Trees " . Other frames had worked well at grade 4 - this one hadn't ; Huge areas of highlight had been completely lost and the shadow detail had had a similar fate with a large area just to the left of centre rendered black .
My first task in the darkroom was to focus the image to the required size on the easel and set the enlarger to grade 2 as suggested . An f stop of 5.6 was chosen for the enlarging lens . Under safelight I cut a single 10x8 sheet into about 12 pieces each one about half the size of a playing card .  I placed just one piece in the centre of the easel after I had put the others back in the light proof packaging . The centre was about the brightest part of the image and I wanted to find out the exposure time to achieve bright highlights which weren't blown . I knew from experience I was looking at a time of 40 seconds plus so I set the timer to 22 seconds and hit it twice giving an exposure of 44 seconds . Before taking it over to the trays I marked the rear side of the paper 44s . After developing stopping and fixing the test square it was time to put the lights up and examine it . Result - an improvement but still too light . Next test was 25 seconds x2 - a 50 second  exposure . The result this time was perfect ! now to adjust the grade to get shadow ....
            Even at grade 2 the edges of the highlight square were indicating there was a problem with the shadows ." Maximum black "was being achieved but in large areas meaning shadow detail was being lost . This indicated a lower grade (lower contrast) filter was needed . Just to make sure there was some hope of achieving a result I decided to use the lowest grade filter 0 . The test square was placed on the shadow area just to left of centre and exposed for 50 seconds , marked and processed . The result was encouraging - shadow detail was now evident . Blacks were just shy of maximum though indicating a slightly higher grade . The test was repeated using grade  1/2 and voila ! shadow detail and maximum black .

   So I took out a full sheet and gave it 50secs at f5.6 using Grade 1/2 and the result was what I wanted . While the photo wasn't a masterpiece I was fully in control of the printing process and had only used 1/2 a sheet of paper getting a satisfactory result . Thanks Bruce !

Taking Control Of The Printing Process (the theory )

As I wrote in my previous piece - "Square Trees" it was time to gain better control of my final prints in the darkroom . Most film users agree it's far better when you are starting out to use one film/developer combination and one paper/paper developer combination in the darkroom . i.e. be consistent . This is easy enough to grasp and I had done it early on . Your methods too need to be consistent.
While my methods when it came to developing film were very consistent  in the darkroom I was using a lot of trial and error . This meant (a) I was wasting a lot of paper and (b) I wasn't really in full control and was achieving results I liked by luck rather than design . My plan was to use Bruce Robbins methods laid out in his blog .
Put simply Bruce starts with highlights . You  select this area in the photo (negative is thickest ) and using test strips find a balanced exposure time which leaves the highlights bright but not blown out . This is done at a lowish grade (2)  . Once this exposure time has been established your attention goes to the darkest area (clearest part of the negative ) . You DON'T change the exposure time from now on - just establish the correct grade (contrast ) to achieve on the one hand "maximum black " in the shadows while on the other preserving shadow detail . Once you know the time and grade you can use a full sheet and achieve a full range print with the least amount of paper wasted . simple eh ?