any B+W print lab workers out there?

[percepts]

How many B+W prints do you reckon you can do in an 8 hour day including developing film in an auto processor and developing paper using a dry to dry processor. (approx 1.5 mins). Enlarger and focusing is manual and negatives are of varying contrast and varying size prints are required from 5x7, 6x8, 10x8, 9.5x12 and 20x16. Burning and dodging required on most prints to control highlights. Quality average, i.e. we are not talking works of art here but they must look good.

Anyone actually done this and what was your daily average output.

 

[Lee L]

I used to run 2 Omega D5XL condenser enlargers, one "job" on each enlarger. I switched back and forth between enlargers and jobs while the latest print from the other job was wet. Used Kodak Poly RC II and III (late 80's), mostly 4x5 to 8x10 prints with Kodak PC filters in drawers, and a roller transport processor at about the speed you mention. But I did sizes up to 16x20 and as small as 2"x3". Negatives by non-professionals of all kinds and a few pros, mostly developed by a very good and consistent co-worker. All kinds of film, mostly in 35mm, but occasional MF and 4x5 and Polaroid Type 55 negatives.

I controlled contrast with PC filters and occasional flashing with a white piece of plastic over the lens and negative (at about 20% of the main exposure). No metering, all estimated by eye. I used the Fibonacci series for exposure times so I could do repeats to match, and work at convenient and reasonable steps. I worked 30 hour weeks and went through 2000 sheets of paper a month, with only about 3% or so redos, so about a print every 4 minutes.

The only complaints about quality I ever got were from people wanting shadow detail from film pushed way beyond capacity.

YMMV

Lee

 

[percepts]

if I suggest two enlargers they will probably expect twice as much output!
I'm told that when it gets busy 100 prints a day is the norm which is about 4.2 minutes a print for 7 hours printing. Currently I'm nowhere near that speed.
How long did it take you to get upto that speed?

 

[Lee L]

if I suggest two enlargers they will probably expect twice as much output!
I'm told that when it gets busy 100 prints a day is the norm which is about 4.2 minutes a print for 7 hours printing. Currently I'm nowhere near that speed.
How long did it take you to get upto that speed?

Didn't realize that you were considering taking a job.

I used two enlargers so that I could load a new neg and make an exposure while I left the setup for the wet print in place, just in case I needed to make an adjustment and a second print. You really couldn't load, square up, dust the neg, focus, change filters, reset timers, etc any faster than I was going. I rarely needed a second print for corrections, certainly much less than 5%, but two enlargers combined with the processing time worked to prevent having to reload a negative to make corrections. Two enlargers also helped push through the smaller jobs without being held up by a really big one.

I pretty much started at full speed. I'd done a fair amount of printing my own stuff in my own darkroom (B&W, color negs, color reversal, also with a D5XL) and had a good understanding of what I was doing. I started using the Fibonacci times about three days in, and it took me about the same amount of time to get good at judging exposure and contrast by eye. Having 95% of the negatives come from a fine and consistent worker in the next room helped a lot. He was very good to work with on adjusting development on the new TMAX films and developer, and also did some TMX + Rodinal testing for me. (He always laughed at what became my mantra for people who wanted shadow detail that wasn't in the negs: "If you want it printed that way, shoot it that way.")

I worked in a university AV lab and had a great boss. He didn't pressure me to work too fast, and told our clients up front when there was a wait, so he screened me from the pushy folks. The prices were low, the quality high, and they really couldn't complain. If they did, they were asked to get the work in with more lead time in the future. I worked there just over a year before we moved away, and I can only recall one or two times when he allowed a client to "cut in line" to meet a deadline.

I suspect that once you've been there a couple of days the flow will come and you'll rapidly get your speed up. My main problem was the tedium... lots of boring documentation style stuff, event and people shots, and DNA test images (those go quickly). Very little remotely interesting as images in themselves. The photos of artwork were a welcome relief. Good music with variety is a must.

If you're working for real pros, you have a chance to become a trusted partner in making their work look its best, and that could lead to doing better paying custom printing.

If you're contracting this work be careful. I once had someone contract a fixed sum for a fixed number of prints. When she dropped off an extra 20 print job on her way to an event with her family late on a Sunday afternoon with delivery promised for Monday morning, I told her she'd hit the contracted limit and would get a pro-rated price for each extra print. She had bid her end of the job so low that she couldn't afford it without losing money on the job, and had to have her husband drop her back home to finish the job and go out with the kids without her. My point is that you should treat your work professionally despite what your clients do.

Good luck.

Lee

 

[removed account4]

i was doing full time printing ( back in the 80s ) for someone ( portrait photographer).
i was making multiple (custom) 5x7s and could print 12 at a time,
and doing 15 -20 negatives in a day easy. i was also making 8x10-16x20 fiber
prints ( maybe 3 from the same film ) at a time, but they took a bit longer to
come up in the developer so it slowed me down a bit ... it was a lot of fun.

that was all after processing the day before's 5x7 film
deep tank + hangers for about an hour and proofing too ...
all the film was consistant - she was in the front room and
shot everything with studio strobes, a packard shutter, and stopped down to the same fstop ..
and i made sure the film looked the same before it got retouched ...
we used to stick one of those heat rods in the developer, and i made a chart
for every degree above and below 68º --- some of her friends developed by
inspection, but eileen never did that ...

before i worked for her, i had never really done printing for anyone else.
i was taught by someone who learned in the golden years ( 1930s ),
and learned what good negatives print like since before that, i had only
printed from my own film, which looked nothing like "the real thing".

nowadays i still print jobs out, and it usally takes me about 1h / frame
that i have to print, unless they are all the same range, and i can guess
what the exposure will be ... this is all fiber paper, and they usually come up
about 45seconds after i dunk them ... i can usually finish a roll of 36exp film
in a day and 1/2, and make 4 prints from each frame ... i wish i had tray rockers,
it would make things a bit easier, but they are noisy -- really noisy ...


good luck! ( and have fun )

- john

 

[Flotsam]

I worked as a B&W printer for a while, back in the day. Used a Kodak Royalprint mostly and RC, sometimes trays for fiber. There were few 8 hour days. The required OT was murder.
One thing that I quickly noticed was that professional photographers who didn't print their own stuff tended to produce sucky negs that required 4x as long to print as a real photographer/processor/printer or even an amateur with a decent auto camera for that matter. The underpaid lab rat had to save their bacon with their darkroom skills while getting ragged for not being productive enough.
The day after I quit, I loaded my bicycle panniers for self-contained camping (no camera) and just disappeared for a few weeks and a thousand miles.
The experience made me a much better printer and I was indelibly impressed with knowledge that taking the time to produce the best possible negative is the the most important thing that a photographer can do.

 

[Kilgallb]

I am in awe of you professional lab people. I could do maybe 20 prints in a day from 35 mm shot at a single event with the same lighting and all negatives the same density. So I only had to do test strips on the first frame. But from different negatives, how did you do it.

Did you guys set intial exposure on the paper by eye or with some sort of expusure meter?

 

[DKT]

I have always worked at places where I had to see the job through from start to finish, meaning not only do the studio or location work, but the film processing, printing, finishing, and the business end--paperwork, files etc. The printing I do for my job now is more cyclical-- times of shooting for exhibits & publications, and then having maybe a month or less to produce the prints & mount etc. It's like batch processing really--production periods.

We have three 4x5 enlarging stations, in kreonite cabinets (self contained), one with a drop leaf. we do up to 20x24, but occasionally have gone larger, although it's a real pain. our machine--ilford 2150--runs in a minute dry to dry. there's a large sink as well, used mainly for sulfide toning since it has a custom slot hood attached to it for this purpose, but we also tray process on dire occasions when the machine is down. Last time I did this at work, I made about 350 5x7s in a day (off one neg). I did an exhibit last year, where I had to selenium tone the final prints. I made two sets of 16x20s, from 51 negatives. I averaged one set an hour--it took me about 25 minutes to do each print. I spent most of this time, washing prints and rocking trays.

I used to make more large runs off single negs, but we don't send that many prints out anymore thanks to digital & FTP sites. Back when I did this--I would sometimes use two enlargers, if I had multiple negs. I can average about 250 prints in an hour, off a single neg. I could do about 5 sets of these 250 sheet or so runs in an average day, without screwing up. I mainly just briskly moved from the enlarger to the machine--like a machine--shoveling prints into it. every 50 or so prints, I might stop & check them out quickly, and then get back to it. I recently printed about 250 ilford postcards off 5 negs this way, and it took maybe two hours at most.

I have a work plan that sets in the number of redos (shooting, printing etc) I get in a work period. For printing I get no more than two a month, using four sheets of paper max per negative. I can't think of the last time I had a print sent back--This is just something to track job performance, but it also helps with newer employees in trying to keep the paper usage from getting out of hand. You have to learn when enough is enough, and so you develop a good eye as a printer, knowing that the subtle fixes you might make to a negative--while may seem very important to you--are often overlooked by 99% of the people. There are also negatives that are really lousy, and no amount of salvage work will save, so you learn to make a good print off these--in that it can reproduce with good tones--but not a masterpiece, because frankly the negatives are not capable of that.

I quit obsessing a long time ago about speed and the number I could get done in a day. My deadlines are often that I have to have everything done by a certain date/time--so I do what I have to do to meet that. That said...I worked on a short turnaround exhibit last month. I had to make about 2 8x10s each of 200+ negs, and then after an edit---I had to make the exhibit prints, again 2 sets each (one extra)--ranging from small to 20x24s. Then I had to mount them. On top of that, I had copywork on 4x5, photos & artifacts (textual), as part of those work prints. In a one month period, I shot & processed almost 350 sheets of film, made those work prints in four days (used 3/4 case of paper as well), and then made almost 100 final prints--plus mounted them. All the while, the other guy I work with was doing the same thing--yet with color, and working with outside labs for murals. I wound up putting in almost 40 hours of OT on top of the 40/week I regularly work.

I think if I can break it down though-- I can do about 5 minutes per neg. As something like a "commercial" grade would be--good tones for repro, modest dodging & burning. anything more takes longer--uses more materials etc. The exhibit prints take me a little longer, but in the end, I try to keep the paper usage to within my limits, and I'll just put in however much time I have to, to get it done. I don't make garbage in/garbage out prints--I treat 'em all the same, whenever possible.

I don't know if this really helps--my advice would be to try to streamline your technique--set up some limits for how much time and how many materials you'll consume per job, and know when to call it done & move on. If you can stick with it--and approach each job or assignment as a learning experience or a way to hone your chops, instead of a boring, rote task--then sooner or later, you'll find your stride.


my opinions only/not my employers.

 

[Bob Carnie]

For the type of RC prints you are describing with a roller transport machine, with two or three available enlargers between 100 and 200 prints per day. This would take a bit of time to warm up to this , but quite possible.

Exhibition fibre prints I can do anywhere 5- 10 negatives a day. With a good assistant in the darkroom handling post dev a few more is possible. 16x20 or 20x24.

 

[dr5chrome]

Though all of my past lab work [other employers-freelance] was mostly CIBA or R-print, B&W work is much different.

If you cater to quality RC neg by neg 15-25 original negs is a good days work.
BC's fiber output is also realistic.

If you are processing and contacting, or proof printing, you should be able to output 50-60 rolls a day. The more automated the equipment the more volume you should be able to do.

Quantity - roll easel work, the volume can be 1000's of prints

dw

www.dr5.com

 

[percepts]

well I have started the job. Its temporary for just the summer season. It's a small company doing mostly beach shots of families, children and babies with an occasional commission at someones house or christening etc. The selling point is traditionally printed silver gelatin prints which are all on RC paper. Cheap Kentmere VC Select which requires only small amount of filtration change for big change in contrast.

They have set their dev time of acros 100 so that zone VIII gives film density of 1.57 i.e. very contrasty negs. To compound the problem, they use fill flash on nearly all shots and because of mostly bright sunlight on hair, virtually all shots need burning in on top of head or side of face unless I kill the contrast of the print which makes them look lifeless. And to compound things further, they like all the children images to be printed with skin tones up around print value VII or VIII. i.e. they have a set look for the images which is often at odds with a heavily sun tanned subject. Oh, and they want 100 negs done a day in 7 hours. Currently my output is approx 20-25.

enalrger is crap. Its a leitz focomat V35 and when you change aperture it rotates focus which means you can't open up to focus because when you close down you will screw focus. A real PITA. The autofocus is bust. There's no filter holder available under the lens for flashing although thats a minor concern. There's no lightbox in the darkroom and I had to ask for a loupe in the darkroom. Get the picture?

So I have some saying a print every 4 mins is reasonable and others saying 20-25 a day is reasonable. I will be surprised if I manage to double my output and I have told them their expectations are unreasonable.

What do you think? Should I tell them they need to adjust exposure and development to give a softer and easier to print neg which is likely to require much less use of fill flash. I know they won't like that because thats the way they have always done it and I think trying to explain about development contrast will go over their head.

And number one rule is that I make the little darlings look wonderful!

 

[removed account4]

just make sure the rollers are clean
i made prints for someone years ago,
on an ektamtic processor ( i think that is how you spell it ?)
and his rollers were all gummed-gunked up
and it didn't make for nice prints ...

good luck!

john

 

[dpurdy]

I still do custom fiber printing and on a busy day i can crank out prints from 15 negs. More and I get cranky myself. I know a couple of printers who were in similar situations as you describe. One worked for a commercial photo studio doing catalog work and could print 60 to 70 prints a day. The other did black and white printing for a print shop and he used an analyzer and processed his test prints for 10 seconds in 130 degree developer. He could do a couple hundred prints running them on his processing machine but the quality was crap./

Quality takes time to consider things and time to let your eyes adjust and rest from going dark to light all the time and concentrating so much. Occassionally I have to stop and throw a few darts or go to use the washroom to get my critical vision back.

Dennis Purdy

 

[Lee L]

Given that you're working with a single, broken enlarger, overdeveloped negatives, and a house "style" that requires a lot of burning in, I'd say you're doing very well at 25/day. You'd know better that the rest of us how approachable they might be on development and exposure adjustments.

As for practical suggestions, the first thing I'd do is get a piece of translucent perspex, a white styrofoam cup, drafting vellum, or something to diffuse the light from the enlarger for flashing. Flash with the negative still in the carrier and the diffusing material below the lens so that it affects all light coming out of the lens, and work out a flashing time as a percentage of the main exposure. I found this worked well for bringing the highlights back down with contrasty negatives, and you don't have to mess with removing the negative or setting up a separate flashing station (although a separate flashing easel might work well). A flash of 20% of the printing exposure worked consistently well for me, but that was with my setup. If you're lucky, you might be able to bring down the highlights sufficiently this way to avoid burning individual areas.

Good luck.

Lee

 

[DKT]

What do you think? Should I tell them they need to adjust exposure and development to give a softer and easier to print neg which is likely to require much less use of fill flash. I know they won't like that because thats the way they have always done it and I think trying to explain about development contrast will go over their head.

the less work you have to do, the better off you'll be. if you have to dodge/burn/flash every neg--you'll drive yourself nuts trying to do that every day. I'd be hard pressed to do that every day--on my normal days, I average about 20-25 negs. I don't do the high volume stuff every day--I can if I have to, but I don't often do that, nor have the necessity. When I exhibit print, as in the case above--I was doing about 20 negs a day, and making multiple sets & versions, trying to make them look nice.

but I also run all my own film, and I can pull a neg I shot 15 years ago, and have it print at often the same time & contrast as one I shot today. I can also often pull negs that were shot 50 years or more ago, and have those print in similar predictable ways. What I'm saying is that if you work with negs within the standards--it makes life easier. you'll never make that crazy schedule of 100 negs a day if they're all crap to begin with. it truly will be GIGO.

this might be where you can sell yourself back as a good lab person--pitch it back as this is how we can make the product better--not, this is what you're doing wrong....

btw--I flash with the neg still in the enlarger. just stop down more, and use a crumpled up piece of tissue paper under the lens--move it around a little bit.

just a thought--good luck all the same--and my opinions only as always.

 

[dr5chrome]

..this is not realistic. if they can supply you with an automated printer, then it might be possible. They should be extremely pleased with your volume given the conditions you have to do the work.

Sounds like a job i would stay away from.

dw

well I have started the job. Its temporary for just the summer season. It's a small company doing mostly beach shots of families, children and babies with an occasional commission at someones house or christening etc. The selling point is traditionally printed silver gelatin prints which are all on RC paper. Cheap Kentmere VC Select which requires only small amount of filtration change for big change in contrast.

They have set their dev time of acros 100 so that zone VIII gives film density of 1.57 i.e. very contrasty negs. To compound the problem, they use fill flash on nearly all shots and because of mostly bright sunlight on hair, virtually all shots need burning in on top of head or side of face unless I kill the contrast of the print which makes them look lifeless. And to compound things further, they like all the children images to be printed with skin tones up around print value VII or VIII. i.e. they have a set look for the images which is often at odds with a heavily sun tanned subject. Oh, and they want 100 negs done a day in 7 hours. Currently my output is approx 20-25.

enalrger is crap. Its a leitz focomat V35 and when you change aperture it rotates focus which means you can't open up to focus because when you close down you will screw focus. A real PITA. The autofocus is bust. There's no filter holder available under the lens for flashing although thats a minor concern. There's no lightbox in the darkroom and I had to ask for a loupe in the darkroom. Get the picture?

So I have some saying a print every 4 mins is reasonable and others saying 20-25 a day is reasonable. I will be surprised if I manage to double my output and I have told them their expectations are unreasonable.

What do you think? Should I tell them they need to adjust exposure and development to give a softer and easier to print neg which is likely to require much less use of fill flash. I know they won't like that because thats the way they have always done it and I think trying to explain about development contrast will go over their head.

And number one rule is that I make the little darlings look wonderful!

 

[Bob Carnie]

I agree with DRfive, If they are expecting good production they should be giving you good gear to work with, my earlier post was relating to three good enlargers , with all the necessary equipment and a good working black and white processor.

 

[percepts]

the print processor is fine.

 

[Harrigan]

Sounds like you have pretty good output to me using that garbage and printing terrible quality negs.

I don't recommend this type of work as it will burn you out and you'll never want to print your own work. This is what happened to me and my personal work stagnated when I was in the lab business.

However it's interesting to know there are some folks still doing commercial printing by hand. I would think this is very rare these days.

 

[percepts]

As for practical suggestions, the first thing I'd do is get a piece of translucent perspex, a white styrofoam cup, drafting vellum, or something to diffuse the light from the enlarger for flashing. Flash with the negative still in the carrier and the diffusing material below the lens so that it affects all light coming out of the lens, and work out a flashing time as a percentage of the main exposure. I found this worked well for bringing the highlights back down with contrasty negatives, and you don't have to mess with removing the negative or setting up a separate flashing station. A flash of 20% of the printing exposure worked consistently well for me

Just made myself a flashing tool using several layers of density 0.12 diffusion material and will test it tomorrow. I can add or remove layers to get flash time to same as print time which should make life easy. I,m using very short print times as sharpest aperture seems to be 5.6 and for small prints that's very bright. Less than 2 secs for some prints!

Just curious if you know what density your piece of perspex was.

 

[Lee L]

Just curious if you know what density your piece of perspex was.

A single thickness (1/16 inch, milky white) measures 0.7 stops when placed on my light box, but I may have been using a double thickness for flashing in that darkroom. That was 20 years ago and I had the single piece and a double thickness pair (sized and spaced to slip 75mm gel filters between them a la A. Adams) both on hand.

Harrigan is correct about printing that much. It will rapidly improve your speed in getting to a decent print, but my wife even had a hard time getting me into a dark theater to see a movie after 30-40 hours/week in the darkroom.

Lee

 

[percepts]

my rough calculation is about 1/16 the time for flash which is 4 stops which would approximate your double thickness and 20% time so I'll start a little test with 4 stops density of diffusion material and see what happens.

It's only temporary for a few months so hopefully I'll retain my sanity. It'll be a learning curve if nothing else. I do so little burning and dodging on my own prints that at least I'll be learning something.

Thanks all for helpful replies.

 

[Kilgallb]

OK

Can anyone tell me if lab workers use an exposure meter or do it by experience or eye.

 

[richard ide]

Kilgallb,
All three although I generally used a light meter to verify that I had screwed something up. Workflow planning can really save a lot of time. Printing off the same negative I could sometimes do 100 prints in about 5 minutes. Big prints (40 x 40) from aerial negatives.... sometimes as many as 20 per hour. Most of the time a little slower. Large film... I could do a set of separation positives (4' x 8')in about 90 minutes including spotting.

 

[Uncle Jim]

Kilgallb,
I worked as a commercial printer for about 3 years in the 90's. All the B&w that I did was by eye. In very short order you learn how dark the image should be on the easel. Didn't really count stops on the lens. Just turn diaphragm until the image is the correct density. Of course, for color, we used an analysier and it was wrong a good bit of the time.