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Burning/Dodging with filters...

CMoore

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Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
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35mm
I have only seen it mentioned briefly.
Is it kosher, or just as sensible to make dodging tools from Y or M filters.?
If you are printing something that looks great at 30" and 60M, except for one small area that shows too much contrast.....does it make sense (during the initial exposure) to dodge that one area with a Y filter.?
Thank You
 
Sure you can dodge and burn with Y and M filters. I do that for black & white & color all the time.
 
Thanks.
I realize that is probably a "beginner question".....but i do not see it discussed very much in my books and forums. Not saying it Never bets mentioned, just not as much as some other procedures .
Thanks Again
 

ARe you talking about holding the filter in your hand and dodging with it?
 
When dodging i often prefer using a grade 5 filter for a larger area or a couple of smaller dodging tools made from a old filter for the smaller areas, in stead of the usual card board tools. In combination with making the dodged area a bit lighter, you also increase the local contrast using a high grade filter. That way I find it easier to get more shadow detail without loosing the deepest blacks.

I guess you could do the same with a 00-filter, but one way or the other I do have less need for such. More often I find myself in the position to burn in the high lights after changing to a 00-filter to make it easier to get some high light detail or to make a bland sky appear just of white.

And in the end: when it works for you, there is nothing to keep from using it, what ever people say here!
 
I want a 6x9 condenser enlarger. (Already have a colour head Durst.)

It'll be old, no filter drawer. I think I can manage split grade printing with 2 under the lens filters by holding them but this thread has got me thinking what if I need to dodge/burn as well? Not enough hands.

Time to get the grandkids involved I think.
 
Using the yellow filter over a shadow will indeed block the blue light that would have darkened the shadow, but using a standard opaque tool will likely give the same effect. Using a magenta filter over a highlight will indeed block the green light that would have darkened the highlight , but using a standard opaque tool will likely give the same effect.
That is my experience, try it yourself and see.
 
Depending on the design, you might be able to set the filters on the top of the condenser.
 
Yes, that makes sense and is not an uncommon practice.
 
When I printed colour wedding images on enlarger, sometimes we resorted to filter out the white dress by dodging and then burning back with a colour correction filter to correct the colour, one had to be carful in balancing the two and not throwing the area out of focus.

also I will use a trick of dodging an area and then printing back the same area with a much higher.... or lower... filter to accent local contrast in a particular region.. this is very helpful when wanting to punch up shadow regions that have detail in them.

When I burn highlights, I may use a flash to start initial density, then burn in with a low filter to bring in more density, but I will also burn in with 5 filter on top to darken any dark objects in the highlights... this has the overall effect of fooling the eye to see detail when sometimes it is lost in the negative balance.

By dodging and burning one can do some things that are quite incredible... When I printed Vivian Maier show here in Toronto, there is a particular image where I had to resort to some of these tricks... magically a building appears or disappears based on the flash, dodge and burn sequencing.... I am interested to see if the printer in Germany comes up with the same building in the image now that the collection resides in Berlin.
 

An eye opener, thanks Bob (and others on this thread)! I have to read up some on flashing as it seems quite a popular technique. Can you recommend any good sites that would have examples of these different techniques? Also, do you find these techniques are used a lot or only for certain images? I tried recently printing one photo of mine with a mix of two contrasts (burning in about a third after an initial low contrast exposure), but it didnt suit the image after all. It was also difficult to get the transition from one to the other smooth...
 
It depends on what you are working on, I find that with street photography, the variables of lighting for someone with roll camera or 35mm camera can be daunting, changing and variable.. I find that I flash a lot in these scenerios.
Natural light would be the main areas... Studio flash and controlled exposure development sometime take the need away.
 
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