Any good comprehensive guides to dodging and burning? Online or print.

removed account4 · Jun 3, 2014

my apologies to the OP for my going on in his/her thread but
what suggested previously in this thread " doesn't work? ?

===

i had a print a while back that looked like it was made from a "normal" looking
35mm negative. it wasn't dense at all, in fact it was kind of on the thin side.
i printed it on seagul warmtone fb paper grade 3.
everything printed just fine except for what i needed to burn in.
even wide open burning in for 6 minutes i couldn't get the hot to not be hot.
i did what i was told in all the manuals, the books, &c nothing worked, and i wasted maybe 10 sheets of paper.
then i thought outside the box ...
i made the exposure i needed to make and halfway through the development in the tray
maybe at 1 minute, i removed the image from the developer, rinsed off some of the developer,
aligned it back under the enlarger and burned in the hot spots, maybe 30 seconds of burning in stopped down
... i put it back in the developer .. and the print came out perfectly. i made 2 of them.

if i had done all the stuff people usually suggest i would have been out 50 sheets of paper, and have no print
at the end of the day.

sometimes it is necessary to know alternatives to the main road.
and allowing only one point of view to be expressed is a road to disaster.

Paul Howell · Jun 3, 2014

jnanian said:
my apologies to the OP for my going on in his/her thread but
what suggested previously in this thread " doesn't work? ?

===

i had a print a while back that looked like it was made from a "normal" looking
35mm negative. it wasn't dense at all, in fact it was kind of on the thin side.
i printed it on seagul warmtone fb paper grade 3.
everything printed just fine except for what i needed to burn in.
even wide open burning in for 6 minutes i couldn't get the hot to not be hot.
i did what i was told in all the manuals, the books, &c nothing worked, and i wasted maybe 10 sheets of paper.
then i thought outside the box ...
i made the exposure i needed to make and halfway through the development in the tray
maybe at 1 minute, i removed the image from the developer, rinsed off some of the developer,
aligned it back under the enlarger and burned in the hot spots, maybe 30 seconds of burning in stopped down
... i put it back in the developer .. and the print came out perfectly. i made 2 of them.

if i had done all the stuff people usually suggest i would have been out 50 sheets of paper, and have no print
at the end of the day.

sometimes it is necessary to know alternatives to the main road.
and allowing only one point of view to be expressed is a road to disaster.

Although most of my prints tend to be photojournalistic in style, I dont burn and dodge extensively, I find that books that shows how the printer arrived at the final image to be very helpful. Burning, dodging, bleaching, and toning are simple concepts. At the very basic level holding back the light to lighten skin tone or burning in the sky to bring out clouds is not all that complicated. As practiced by a great photographer like AA or Eugene Smith what is craft becomes art.

In order to think outside the box, you need the basic skills to understand what is not working and what could work. BTW I have an old Kodak book from the early 50s on advanced darkroom which describes the process you discovered along with how to make a mask and internegative to control contrast. I have use the same tech several times over the years.

removed account4 · Jun 3, 2014

i guess getting a basic idea and then learning by doing,
is considered "bad info on the internet"

OP,
good luck with your reading !

jeztastic · Jun 3, 2014

Wow...

Thanks all, especially for the links to some interesting sites, book recommendations, and to those who took the time and effort to write out some of their process. Very useful, and exactly what I was looking for...

As for the rest, I'm new to this forum, I can see it's going to be a fun ride! :munch:

Ken Nadvornick · Jun 3, 2014

When you feel you are receiving conflicting advice regarding technical matters, and there is quite of bit of that here on APUG, one thing you can do is to jump over to the APUG galleries. (You do have to be a subscriber to do this. Fortunately, subscription rates on APUG are very reasonable.)

If possible, locate the advisor's uploaded scans of their prints (not all uploads are print scans, some are just negative scans) and take a good hard look.

If you like what you see, if a certain advisor's prints resonate with you, then that could be a good indicator that the techniques advised by that person might also work for you. Or at least be a reasonable starting point for your own experimentation.

On the other hand, if what you see does not look meaningful to you, or does not look like it's the direction you want your prints to go, then simply discount that advisor's original advice and move on to try something different.

Words and descriptions of techniques can be helpful. But more helpful is to see the final prints that result. And if you can't hold those prints in your own hands, then the gallery reproduction scans are probably the next best thing.

Very quickly you will discover that either you like an advisor's techniques, or you do not. Then act accordingly.

Ken

Bill Burk · Jun 4, 2014

Michael R 1974 said:
I'm sorry to differ with you, but we owe it to less experienced people to point them in directions which will help them learn properly and minimize confusion. It takes some practice and experience before one is able to sort through what one reads on the internet.

OP asked for a source. I gave him some. I believe that is every bit as helpful, if not more so than advising him to simply listen to what everyone says.

I'm sorry, but this thread is as good an example as any other. Some good information. Some bad information. How is OP to know where to begin?

Michael R 1974,

I didn't mean to criticize you, your giving reference to books was what jeztastic asked, you answered directly. I was criticizing myself for being guilty of one of my own pet peeves - saying something is too advanced so don't bother trying it yet.

I'm also sometimes guilty of going off the deep end over people's heads without realizing... so it's a balancing act. When do you say exactly how to do something, and when do you say... well it's a long story.

Am I a master of dodging and burning? Not by a long shot. I'm really bad at making shapes with my hands. But I do dodge or burn something on many of my prints. I often only take one-third stop, on Grade 2 or 3, and at that rate you can't even tell what's been done. I think that's a secret worth sharing... take it easy at first and make little changes... barely noticeable changes. If you mess up the hand gestures, you will have made a barely noticeable change to something you didn't intend. It probably won't ruin the print. But as long as you gesture over the part of the print you planned to, the chance is good that it will be that change you had in mind.

Most of the time a person's face needs to be dodged. This is the first place where you will dodge too much, leaving a fuzzball face. Looking over some of my notes, most of the shots in the gallery with my daughter have a third-stop dodge on her face.

Some of my prints have burns that might seem like wasted effort. The upper-left (pulley) of Dangerous Treehouse is burned - but there's so much flare there that the burn is invisible. (I noted to double the burn next time). The trunk is dodged. There you can see detail - where it would otherwise have been black.

nworth · Jun 6, 2014

Dodging and burning is an art learned mostly through practice. Rudman's book is excellent, and several others are very good. You will learn the most from case studies. A few years ago, Black and White Photography (the British version) did a long series on printing that gave excellent examples. Look at issues from 2006, 2007, and probably several years either side of that. Ansel Adams "Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs" also has some examples.

piu58 · Jun 15, 2014

> Yes, if you select the correct exposure for a given lighting ratio with the correct lens rendition (all other factors such as development being OK) then dodging and shading should not be necessary

With "correct" exposure and development you can control the overall contrast. It may be that you wish to have a higher local contrast to bring out the structures and textures. Then the gloabl contrast gets to high and you have burned highlights, empty shadows opr both. Burning and dodging helps to master this problems.

Most of the things don't need any books or so. The most important thing is to have an idea how he final image should look like. Examples in book ar valuable for this point.

Bob Carnie · Jun 15, 2014

I like to keep dodging and burning workflow basic and repeatable.
After your first full print without any D&B and one that is very close in overall contrast and density, look at the image.

Are there areas that you think are too dark?, are there areas that are too light?, these are the areas that you attack and place the tones where you want them.
After the second full print with D & B do you think you have achieved the image you are going for.

Now ask yourself, what else can I do to lead the viewers eye around this image, It may be an extra edge burn, it may mean adding contrast in areas by dodging the area and burning back in with a higher grade filter.. Or you may want to lower the contrast in that area and use a different filter .
The trick IMO is to make sure that when the print is finished, your D& B is not obvious , and this comes with practice.

mr rusty · Jun 15, 2014

The trick IMO is to make sure that when the print is finished, your D& B is not obvious

Unless you want it to be obvious! Sometimes you just want that black sky at the top of the print. Only way to get it (unless you filter a hell of a lot) is to burn it in. Everybody know it's burnt in, but sometimes it just works.

Bill Burk · Jun 15, 2014

mr rusty,

Some people have the guts to break the rule that says try not to make burning and dodging obvious...

NB23 is an example member here, who effectively eschews that rule...

RalphLambrecht · Jun 16, 2014

Jez, send me an email to rlambrec@ymail.com and I'll send you something. It's too big for APUG.

RalphLambrecht · Jun 16, 2014

mr rusty said:
Unless you want it to be obvious! Sometimes you just want that black sky at the top of the print. Only way to get it (unless you filter a hell of a lot) is to burn it in. Everybody know it's burnt in, but sometimes it just works.

Yu mean like this

Bob Carnie · Jun 16, 2014

There is obvious burn for aesthetic reasons with purpose and then there is Kitchy Burning for drama, we are all familiar with both.

QUOTE=Bill Burk;1661253]mr rusty,

Some people have the guts to break the rule that says try not to make burning and dodging obvious...

NB23 is an example member here, who effectively eschews that rule...[/QUOTE]

Andrew O'Neill · Jun 16, 2014

There was an excellent article by Fred Picker in Darkroom Techniques back in the 80's. Maybe someone here may have it and can photocopy it for you... He also had a book which may have covered it.

cliveh · Jun 16, 2014

Bob Carnie said:
There is obvious burn for aesthetic reasons with purpose and then there is Kitchy Burning for drama, we are all familiar with both.

QUOTE=Bill Burk;1661253]mr rusty,

Some people have the guts to break the rule that says try not to make burning and dodging obvious...

NB23 is an example member here, who effectively eschews that rule...

[/QUOTE]

Kitch burning and dodging, what a great subject for an exhibition.

cliveh · Jun 16, 2014

Michael R 1974 said:
There is a distinction to be made between manipulations which are obvious in the sense they not realistic, and those that are obvious because of bad technique. In the first case it may simply be a matter of aesthetics and choice, and everyone can argue about that at will. I think the more relevant case as far as OP is concerned is the second, which concerns technique.

Well I don't know what the OP thinks about that statement, but it has sure confused me.

cliveh · Jun 16, 2014

Michael R 1974 said:
Why? Some prints are obviously highly manipulated in the sense the viewer can clearly tell they are not "literal" representations of the original scenes.

However if one lacks adequate technique, this type of manipulation becomes more obvious because of the unintended telltale artifacts left behind: halos around dodged areas, sky burns that darken areas below the horizon, etc etc. I'm giving a landscape example, but the same applies to portraiture, documentary, or any other photographic style.

But isn't this the same type of example?

Bill Burk · Jun 16, 2014

cliveh,

It's hard not to be confused by all the different things people say about dodging and burning.

Not burning or dodging at all.

While learning, making mistakes and either under-doing or over-doing it.

Deliberately under-doing or over-doing it with the intent to look like beginner mistakes.

Dramatically doing dodges and burns to create moods and effects.

Judiciously doing dodges and burns to resolve deficiencies and improve visual effectiveness.

Have I named all the categories?

removed account4 · Jun 16, 2014

Bill Burk said:
cliveh,

It's hard not to be confused by all the different things people say about dodging and burning.

Not burning or dodging at all.

While learning, making mistakes and either under-doing or over-doing it.

Deliberately under-doing or over-doing it with the intent to look like beginner mistakes.

Dramatically doing dodges and burns to create moods and effects.

Judiciously doing dodges and burns to resolve deficiencies and improve visual effectiveness.

Have I named all the categories?

yeah you forgot doing it because you are in the habit of burning all edges
and giving extra time to every print.

Gerald C Koch · Jun 16, 2014

The C I Jacobson book Enlarging is a good source for burning and dodging and other techniques such as flashing. Amazon has used ones.

RalphLambrecht · Jun 16, 2014

jeztastic said:
Thanks for the advice everyone...

Where is 'these parts' Paul? I have yet to update my profile properly, but I am in Canterbury, Kent.

Care to elaborate?

ok,I try

tkamiya · Jun 16, 2014

I'd imagine everyone learns differently, but to me, the best way to learn was to know the basic, try it, and ask questions.

I'm going to explain this the best I can.

The basics are very simple. Expose the paper twice as much, the image gets twice as dark. Expose the paper half as much, it gets half as dark. So, burning takes more time than dodging. If the base exposure was 20 seconds, making a part half as dark takes doding for 10 seconds (during the main exposure), where as making other twice as dark takes 20 seconds of additional exposure. So you have to be quite aggressive on the burning side to make enough difference.

Key element in this is how to achieve the above. You are working with parts of the image, so you have to mask other part of it. This is where a cardboard with a hole, shape on a wand, and just a pain cardboard comes into play. Then, rest is how to move these things with your hand. Speed, direction, how you "shake" it, make difference. A lot of this is by "feel." It's kind of hard to explain or write them down. You just have to try it. I think I've spent a whole box of paper just to get a hang of it. I'd say buy some cheap store brand paper and try your hand.

As to perfect negative not requiring these manipulations....
An average scene has something like 14 to 16 stops of variance. Extreme scenes have more.
Out of which, a typical film an record something like 10 to 12 stops.
Out of which, a typical paper can show 8 stops at the most - more like 7.

So you'll always end up with part that can't show on paper if you "just" print it, even if exposure was perfect. Well, my exposures aren't perfect. Even if it was, our eyes aren't linear like film, so to show what my eyes saw and brain interpreted on paper, manipulation is often necessary.

So far, I only had one or two that some adjustment didn't improve the image.

So, my suggestion to you is head out to a local library and pick up some photography books from the 80s. Then read them through. Then head to your darkroom. I recommend "Photography" by John Upton and Barbara Upton. This is a book that many colleges used as photography course textbooks. I found illustrations simple and to-the-point. Again, rest is something you just have to try and learn.

Good luck!

Any good comprehensive guides to dodging and burning? Online or print.

removed account4

Paul Howell

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Ken Nadvornick

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piu58

Bob Carnie

mr rusty

Bill Burk

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