I have listed four photographic print types using silver and chemistry as their basis. These include traditional silver gelatin fibre based prints, Polaroid prints, Type C colour prints and Cibachrome or Ilfochrome prints. There are many others, including a whole range of printing substrates available to digital printing. If you have a favourite printing process please leave a comment.
Continue reading Photographic Print Types
This is the last in a series of three posts exploring a single, high contrast image, with the goal of making a silver gelatin fibre based print. The first post was Overdeveloped negatives – printing from difficult negatives and the second Contact Proof Prints-standard exposure time.
Split grade printing
I prefer to use the method of split grade printing, especially when dealing with difficult negatives. It breaks the printing down into, what are for me at least, more controllable steps compared to using a fixed paper grade approach. Using variable contrast paper you have the option of using either approach that fits you best. And just because you are using variable contrast does not mean you cannot also employ other contrast control measures like masking, flashing and two bath development to fine tune your prints.
Pre-flashing the print highlights
For this print I chose to pre-flash the lower two thirds of the image with non image forming light. The aim of the pre-flash is to boost highlight details in the forest understorey, by heightening the sensitivity of the emulsion to the main print exposure and thereby encourage more highlight detail to become visible in the print. Such a small pre-flash exposure does not affect the darker print tones to the same extent as it does the highlights.
Soft grade exposure first, then add the hard grade
When I split print I start with a soft light exposure to determine the correct exposure for an important area of print highlight. To that base exposure I might dodge (subtract) certain areas of exposure from the print or burn in (add) exposure. I then work with the hard light exposure, again using a base exposure with dodging or burning as required. Les McLean has written a short but excellent introduction to split grade printing in his “Articles” section on his web site. You will find his web site link on my Resources and Supplies page.
The images above shows the notes I write on the back of a print in china pencil before exposure, outlining all the steps I plan to make during the print exposure under the enlarger. The numbers next to the steps refer to exposure times, in this instance I am using an f stop timer, so a burn of 2/3 equates to additional exposure of 2/3 of a stop. A 6/3 burn in the last step during the soft light exposure equates to a 2 stop increase in exposure compared to the main print. Likewise the hard light exposure has its own steps.
In the top image there is fine textural detail visible in the sunlit karri hazel to the left and in the middle of the print, which is not clearly visible on the monitor reproduction. Likewise some of the shadow detail is not as clear on the monitor. I could have scanned the negative then manipulated it in photoshop to approximate the silver print, but I wanted to avoid that and show the unmounted, untoned 11×14 inch silver gelatin print complete with slightly curled edges! The print will be trimmed and dry mounted, so I don’t print with generous white borders which would be a waste.
Overall I am pleased with the progress made on this difficult negative, given that the contact proofs were so uninspiring. The additional exposure given at the base of the footbridge has worked well in the print. I will view the print for a while, as I feel there are other areas of the print that I may wish to fine tune before I am satisfied I have done my best with it.
In this post I will be looking at establishing a standard exposure time for making your contact prints. This is the second post in a series of three, you can find the first post Overdeveloped negatives – printing from difficult negatives here.
Making a contact proof print
Contact proof prints are simply made by placing the negative onto a piece of photographic paper, placing a clear piece of glass over the top to hold the negative firmly in contact, then exposing with white light.
That first contact print above, was made in 1987 using a normal contrast, grade 2, fibre based paper called Guilbrom. It has been printed way too dark, the negative’s edges indiscernible from the paper’s deep black edge. In my enthusiasm and inexperience, to achieve maximum black at the film’s edge, I overexposed my 1987 contact print. The result is terrible. The shadows in the forest understorey show very little detail, as do the sunlit areas, resulting in a print of high contrast.
Minimum exposure for maximum black
Overexposing contact prints can be a trap to using the “minimum exposure time to achieve maximum black” method. A good contact print exposure time is one where the thinnest part of the negative (ie unexposed clear edge) yields close to maximum black on the contact print using a minimum exposure time. You are really wanting to achieve what I term “near black”, rather than maximum black.
Traps to beware
Establishing a minimum exposure time to yield maximum black can be tricky, as it is operating on the curve of the photographic paper’s sensitivity. Small changes in exposure can give disproportionately larger changes to print density (black). So it is easy to over expose the print as I have done here in 1987, resulting in a high contrast proof print which does not show all the possible detail recorded on the negative.
But the contact proof also tells me that the sunlit area adjacent to the foot bridge is blocked and lacking detail, even with this overexposure. The highlights of the negatives are overdeveloped and with hindsight reduced development would have assisted in retaining more detail in these bright areas on a grade 2 paper. Overall, in 1987, I was disappointed with my contact print, they were way too contrasty, lacking important detail in the shadows and highlights.
Less exposure reveals more shadow detail
The second contact print made in 2015 has received twice the amount of light I would normally use as my standard exposure time in creating a contact sheet. That tells me that this negative made over 25 years ago is at least one whole stop denser than my regular negatives I expose today. This contact proof print has been made on the equivalent of a grade two normal contrast paper. Notice that you can just make out the film identification notches in the upper right corner, that the edge is close to, but just off, maximum black.
The shadow detail is much more visible than the first contact print from 1987. You can see within the shadows of the she-oak and karri hazel understorey including leaf detail. There is an overall feeling of enveloping light which I had desired, but the proof still clearly shows that the sunlit areas are too dense and that they require additional print exposure on a grade 2 equivalent paper.
This second contact print is still far from ideal. If I wanted to reveal more shadow and highlight detail on the contact print I could use a softer grade paper like grade 1 or grade 0. But the purpose of showing these two contacts on grade 2 is that, apart from demonstrating the problems with a high contrast scene, care must be exercised when establishing a standard printing time for making contacts.
Importance of establishing a standard exposure
Establishing a standard exposure or proper proofing time can give you valuable information about your film characteristics such as personal film speed, accuracy of your exposure, image contrast, normal development times, expansion and contraction development times and equipment function.
At workshops I am asked: why do I expose 400 iso film at 200 iso and not at the manufacturer’s recommendations? Or how long should I develop brand X film for in brand Y developer? Or how can I determine proper expansion or contraction development times? All the answers can all be found in establishing a standard contact proof print time, and this can be made visually without specialised equipment.
Resources to help and guide you
I won’t reinvent the wheel here, because there are some excellent books out there on how to do this. John Blakemore’s book Black and White Photography Workshop is an excellent reference for establishing proper proof times. My resources page has Blakemore’s book details as well as other books and websites from authors who offer a great deal of information about proper proofing and darkroom techniques.
I make my contact proofs on fibre based paper because it is the paper used in making a final print. If you are confident of your developing and exposure that you are giving a film, it is sometimes more useful in assessing contact prints made on softer, grade one equivalent paper. This shows more shadow detail on the proof, but gives an overall flatter, foggy feel to the contact print proof images of course. This was a method John Sexton shared in a 1995 lecture that I attended, and something I employ today.
A contact proof need not look like the finished print.
Unlike contact printing whose end purpose is to create a finished print with perhaps dodging and burning, contact proof printing has a different objective. At the end of the day, a contact proof print is not about it looking like your final print, but to give you as much information about your negative as possible so that you can plan your final print.
Overdeveloped negatives, we all have them hidden away somewhere. You know, one of those bullet proof negatives that we look at despairingly knowing it is going to be difficult to print. And this is one of mine, which I have been putting off printing for several decades. You only have to see it on the lightbox above, overdeveloped highlights that look almost solid black. Its only redeeming feature are reasonable shadow details.
In this series of three posts I will be revisiting an image made under difficult light, assessing its contact sheet proofs and using split grade printing to make a 11×14 fibre based print.
Shannon National Park – Wista 4×5 field camera – Karri forest
Step back to the summer of 1986/87. I had received my new Wista 4×5 wooden field camera from Zone VI Studios in the US several months earlier and was itching to get out and make some photographs with it. Armed with one wide angle lens and 12 sheets of black and white film and a tripod, I headed south to the forests. For five or six days I camped within the Shannon National Park, in the heart of the karri forest, one of Australia’s tallest hardwoods. The Shannon once had a small town site and timber mill, which eventually closed around 1968. During the early 1980s the area was a flash point between the State Government’s Forestry Department and conservationists, who were campaigning for the end to old growth logging. Referred to as the Shannon River Basin, it was eventually gazetted as Shannon National Park in 1988.
High contrast photography – forest scenes
Each summer day during my stay at Shannon brought clear blue skies and the forest was flooded with hard, bright light with corresponding deep, hard edged shadows. Great weather for tourists but a photographer’s nightmare. To make it worse I found my subject is most interesting when I photograph into the sun, transforming the backlit leaves into translucent pearls of light. The light was bright and it was hard and I wanted to retain some of that feeling in my photographs. The contrast of the forest scene was very high, and my preferred vision bordered on photographic failure. To make a successful image I would be treading a very fine line. High contrast scenes sit on the edge of the dynamic range of film and papers. Errors in development time and exposure become readily apparent.
Tray processing 4×5 sheet film and film reticulation
When I returned home I eagerly processed the negatives in open trays in a friend’s darkroom, in Fremantle. As the summer heat wave cranked on, the water coming from the old building’s cold water pipes was at 30ºC, so I cooled the developer to 20ºC with an ice block water bath. But there was no extra ice for the other solutions or for film washing. So the film had at least a 10ºC temperature shock going from the developer to the other solutions. It wasn’t until the film was hung up to dry that I noticed a reticulation pattern in the emulsion throughout all twelve films. My initial reaction was that this may have ruined my work. At the time I had no 4×5 enlarger, so no way to assess the affect of the reticulation pattern on the final print.
Next post I will assess contact sheet proofs made in 1987, with a second contact print made a quarter of a century later. I will also be looking at the importance of establishing a proper proof time and its role in determining your film exposure and development times.
Just came across this old photo of mine. Looking more like a guillotine this was my first large format enlarger. It is an old English wooden enlarger for glass plates purchased 25 years ago just outside Launceston, Tasmania.
Made for glass plates up to about 6×8 inches, with two heavy window weights to counterbalance raising the head, brass gearing, fittings and lens. The light source (missing in pic) was a metal box with 5 globes and diffusing glass. Must have got damn hot. I replaced it with a Zone VI cold light head and stabiliser with a 180mm Schneider Componon-S lens. I made exactly 2 16×20 prints from 4×5 negatives before realising I had a major problems with edge to edge sharpness from lens board misalignment which I could not repair. Wood borers had created a bow in the enlarger.
After 12 months or so of hiking around Tasmania’s central highlands I came home to Perth with this old monster in the back of my old station wagon. I boxed it up and gave it to a friend to live out its remaining days in his camera museum. You may come across my old English wooden enlarger one day.
Traditional Silver Gelatin Fibre Based Prints are made by hand and involves the use of traditional darkroom, light sensitive materials and chemistry.
In a darkroom you project an image onto photographic paper, much like you would project an image onto a wall with a slide projector. When making black and white prints the photographer can work under a red or amber safelight which the paper has reduced sensitivity to, hence the red in the darkroom images. A more detailed explanation follows.
Silver gelatin prints I make are made on Czechoslovakian silver gelatin fibre based photographic paper. There are only a few remaining manufacturers of this silver rich paper remain worldwide. The technical benefits of fibre based baryta paper is greater detail and definition, extended tonal range and excellent archival properties. It is the standard for fine art photographers worldwide.
All prints begin with a black and white film negative. The negative image is projected via a light source and focused with a lens onto the photographic paper under darkroom conditions. Controlling of image detail and contrast within the print employs tradition techniques of holding back exposure in some parts of the print while giving additional exposure to other parts. This is all done by hand placing objects into the light path of the projected image to affect a change.
After exposure and still under darkroom safelight the paper is placed in a developing tray where the silver image develops. The paper is then transferred to another tray of stop bath, to arrest development, then a third tray to fix the print by dissolving away the remaining light sensitive parts of the print. It is then washed in water where it can be inspected under normal room light.
After the initial wash the print is treated in a solution to help remove any residual fixer within the paper fibre, then washed for a further 2 hours. When the wash is completed the print is air dried face down on plastic screen mesh.
The final stage improves archival permanence. The print is toned in selenium, then rewashed and dried again before dry mounting onto 100% cotton rag museum boards. The photograph’s title and signature is penciled under the print on the front, the rear of the board is stamped, signed and includes the negative number and the date the print was made. The museum board and print is then placed behind a window mount and glass within an aluminium frame.
The entire process to complete one print can take several days.
My direct involvement with the materials and technique for making an expressive photographic print is of importance to me, so I continue to develop my own films and hand print all my black and white silver gelatin prints in my darkroom.
I thought I would describe a typical darkroom printing session. When I go into the darkroom to make a silver gelatin print I usually like to start pretty much first thing in the morning, so I can take my time. I don’t like to be in a rush when I’m printing, it’s a mental state that is counterproductive in my experience to being creative and receptive to the materials you work with. In my case I print exclusively on baryta base (otherwise known as fibre based) papers. When I step into the darkroom I will have one, or at most, two negatives I wish to make exhibition prints from. I am usually armed with a contact print of the negatives in question, or an earlier print that I have tried to make but has failed to meet my expectations. These proofs or ‘failures’I use as departure points or guides as to where I might like to take the image and materials. When I am assessing a photograph or negative before creating an exhibition print I look for what I find visually exciting about the image and see how I can improve on it. By going to the area that most interests me I can quickly determine through test strips how far I can take the image before I destroy the very qualities or nuances in the print I am seeking. This process gives me a foundation on which to assess the remaining areas of the image in relation to the first. Printing in black and white is especially about how tones within the finished image relate to one another. This process of assessment may not suite everyone, others may prefer to look at highlights and low values of a print overall to begin their process, but apart from gross overexposure or underexposure I find this process difficult for me. I like to go straight to the feeling of the image.
Typically on a 16×20 inch print like the Lefroy Brook one above, I will spend several hours making test strips. I will be searching for the highlights that make the print sing and the low values that anchor the tones to a deep baritone base, revealing the beauty and tonal depth of a silver gelatin print. In the process I will often find a few printing problems that will call on my darkroom craftsmanship to solve. Sometimes they remain unsolvable but instead present an opportunity to learn about fine tuning your craft and technique.
By midday I will start making the first full size images based upon a proper exposure to the highlights. Then I will begin the first series of refinements using various test strip information. This may include some addition exposure (burning in) of print areas or shielding of areas (dodging) from the base exposure. This is an important stage because up to now only test strips have been made and this is the first opportunity to see the print in its entirety and observe the overall relationship of tones. Further refinements of dodging and burning may be required to balance the print tones and maximise details in the soft creamy whites of the prints.
To keep track of these adjustments I write them down on the reverse side of the print with a black china marker. Once all the adjustments have been completed to my satisfaction, I then set about making 4 or 5 finished prints based upon the printing recipe I have constructed. Notes on how I made the print are kept for future reference in a notebook, illustrated above.
It is now about mid afternoon and I have made 4 or 5 prints from the one negative. All test strips and work prints are discarded, only the remaining 4 or 5 are washed, treated in hypo clearing agent to clear any residual fixer, then washed for several more hours. The wet print are then dried face down on plastic screen mesh where they air dry for at least 24 hours at room temp. At a later stage I will selenium tone the prints and rewash and dry.
By the time the print is toned, trimmed and dry mounted onto 100% cotton rag museum board, then window mounted and framed you are looking at several days work, but I get a deep satisfaction when I view the finished images knowing that I have been responsible for every stage in bringing a print from just an idea into existence.
Traditional darkroom practise is slowly disappearing. It seems like there are less and less opportunities around Perth to learn about film photography and the making of traditional silver gelatin photographic prints, using a wet darkroom. Someone was telling me that even the local colleges are cutting back on resourcing film based photography for their students. I guess for colleges it is also a numbers game, you can put more bums on seats in a classroom staring at computer monitors than you can fit into a traditional darkroom. In my lifetime film based photography is considered as “old school”.
Well, if film is “old school” I am definitely for it. In my work as a photographer and publisher I get more than enough daily opportunity to work with digital photography and a plethora of programs, which have, in my line of work, brought many benefits and some disadvantages.
But I love the hands on, organic nature of film based photography. You are dealing with a material which has inherent properties and characteristics. With film there is a tactile aspect to the entire process in your photography, from clicking the shutter to making the print, something that the digital world is largely devoid of. OK, sure, you can press a button and watch someone’s inkjet, running someone else’s algorithms convert the zeros and ones stored on your flash card into a print made up of spray droplets onto a substrate. But it’s not quite the same thing as watching your image develop in a tray into a richly toned silver print that you have had physical contact with throughout its making, and that your decisions, skills and craftsmanship are the culmination of the process. It brings the whole process from visualisation of a potential image to its realisation and display full circle, with the photographer right at the centre.
I’m often asked by students about the availability of black and white films. Film is alive and well, with reports from Freestyle Photographics in the US that there has been a resurgence in usage, especially in the larger formats. Jobo, who discontinued their processing line around 2010, have just announced that, due to growing demand, they are launching a brand new Jobo CPP-3 processor later this year at Photokina 2012. I buy my Foma fibre based silver paper from Blanco Negro Supplies in Sydney, and they have a full range of Foma papers, chemistry and film to choose from. If local retailers don’t carry what you want you can always take full advantage of the digital age and source your supplies worldwide. What may be “old school” in Perth may in fact be a thriving, well resourced community elsewhere in the world.
From time to time I run small photographic workshops providing an introduction to film photography and traditional darkroom printing. If you have a film camera, regardless of format, and you would like to know how to load, process and develop your black and white film and how to print from a negative, then you may want to consider attending. My next workshop is the weekend of the 6th and 7th of October. Darkroom participants are limited to two. You can find more details on my web site and you are welcome to contact me should you want further information.
As my stock of graded photographic papers ran out I recently replaced my Zone VI cold light head on my Beseler MX enlarger with a second hand Beseler Dichroic head. This would allow me to take advantage of the fibre based multigrade papers. However, I struck a problem in that the internal cooling fan seemed to be creating a lot of vibration, noticeable all the way down to the lens turret. I decided to replace the existing fan with a 12volt DC axial fan used in computers. This not only eliminated the vibration but was also much quieter. Below is a description of what I did.
Modifying Beseler 45S Dichroic Head Fan to Reduce Vibration
Disclaimer: Warning! modifying or making alterations to any electrical equipment can be dangerous and should only be carried out by a qualified electrician. The following describes how I replaced the 115 volt AC internal cooling fan of a Beseler 45S Dichroic Colour Head with an axial Thermaltake Smart Case Fan II 12 volt DC , so as to eliminate vibration and thereby improve print quality -sharpness. Please also note that in Australia the AC power is 240 Volts and I am using a step down transformer to convert to 115 Volts AC, because I already use 115 Volt AC Zone VI cold light head and stabiliser as well as 115 Volt AC RH Designs Anayser Pro.
When I finally got to use the dichroic head on my Beseler MX 4×5 enlarger and the 250 watt globe was considerably brighter than my Zone VI cold light, dramatically reducing exposure times.
However, I knew I had potential problems with the head. When I touched the lens barrel to adjust the aperture I could feel a significant amount of vibration. I have used a Super Chromega 6×7 colour enlarger with an inbuilt fan and never felt vibrations to the extent that I was feeling it with the Beseler. Eventually a 11×14 inch print made with the Beseler head when compared to the same print made with ZoneVI cold light, confirmed for me that vibration in the Beseler head was causing softer focus prints. Which kind of defeats the purpose of using 4×5 format in the first place. It was time to have a peek inside the big black box and find out what was going on.
The Beseler Dichroic 45S head I own is not the computerised model. I am assuming it was made around 1997 from a label I found inside. The internal fan is located opposite the 250 watt 82 volt light source. Above is a close up picture of the head with its back removed, revealing the column style fan, mounted on a U shaped chasis. Beseler dampen the fan in at least two points of contact with the head:
1) the blue coloured dampeners located left and right of the middle of the fan where it attaches to the U chasis and
2) the 4 rubber dampeners used to connect the U chasis feet to the floor of the head. Refer to the arrows in the pic above.
Whilst the blue dampeners looked OK, the 4 dampeners attaching the U chasis to the head were compressed and hard from age. This was not surprising given the age of the head. It was obvious that the fan mounting would have to be removed and the rubber dampeners replaced.
The head has two 115V power leads, one for the fan and one for the light source. There is also a switch located at the bottom left front of the head which turns on the fan. As a safety feature the lamp will not run unless the fan switch is on. However, the lamp will run even if the external power cord to the fan is unplugged, so long as the fan switch remains in the ON position. For me this provided the options of installing a new non 115 Volt fan or removing the fan entirely to make an external fan unit as described by Philip Morgan in this link http://www.philipmorgan.net/photography /external-cooling-system-for-beseler-45s/.
Removing the head from the enlarger and disconnecting both power cords I set about removing the fan. First by removing the units top cover and rear panel which are hinged as one piece. Then, I removed the fan blades by loosening the sur clip, then the nuts around the two blue rubber dampeners, unplugging a black lead to a switch box a white lead from a plug near the base of the fan. This now gave better access to remove the 4 nuts connecting the U chasis to the base of the head.
I initially tried dampening the fan by using 5mm wet suit material as additional gasket between the U shaped chasis and the head. With the fan blades cleaned up and the new gasket in place I reassembled the head. Placing the head onto the enlarger, I turned it on. Everything worked, the vibration felt at the lens had much improved, but there was still some which I felt was still likely to affect print quality.
I was talking to a fellow colleague about the fan vibration when he suggested I use an axial fan to replace the column fan type that came with the head. On further investigation of this suggestion I first started looking for 115 Volt AC axial fans. Whilst they are available mainly in the US, freight charges made them uneconomical. I then decided to look at computer fans as they came in a range of sizes with inbuilt speed controls.
I eventually settled on purchasing a 90mm Thermaltake Smart case Fan II which runs on 12 Volt DC. It had two bearings (which I hoped would give smoother longer working life) as well as options for full speed, manual speed control or temperature control. Rather than physically modify the walls of the head I wanted to attach the fan case to the rear panel of the head using the existing air flow grate holes to pass the securing bolts through.
After removing the original fan, I taped up and placed an insulating cap around the exposed white lead as a safety precaution. (I also taped up the external power cord to the fan so it could not be accidently plugged in). Next, I cut a 5mm wet suit foam gasket for the fan case to sit flat against the inside of the head’s rear panel. The fan direction was orientated to expel air from the unit. As the fan case area was smaller than the air flow grate in the rear panel, air had to be prevented from being sucked around the air fan exterior. To close this air gap a rectangle of firm black plastic sheet was cut to cover the grate with a whole the size of the fan cut into the centre for the expelled air. The 4 bolts provided with the kit secured everything into position, passing from the fan case through 5mm wet suit gasket, the black plastic, the air flow grate terminating on the outside of the head with washers and nuts. The 12 Volt DC power cable was also passed through the air flow grate to which I attached a common 240 Volt AC to 12 Volt DC converter to power the fan.
The fan unit was wired so that as soon as I turned on the power to the enlarger/analyser pro the fan automatically turned on and stayed on. After reassembling the head, it was placed onto the enlarger and turned on. The fan operated beautifully and I couldn’t detect any vibration when I touched the lens, the axial fan design had made a big improvement. If you are having vibration problems with your old Beseler 45S then you may want to consider this as a possible solution.
