Can straight print match the nuances of split grade print?

The Aristo lamp I mentioned permits dialing in variable amounts of green and blue along with blue only and green only plus other settings. I believe they or the group that took over have been out of business for years. I had to replace one of the bulbs so I bought both at the time which were quite expensive. There may be some available somewhere At least mine still work.

DREW WILEY said:

With the right kind of cutoff filters, you'd be amazed what can be done with a single exposure on VC paper. But that's a bit too much to explain here.

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Can you elaborate?

There are certain filters where you can kill two birds with one stone, because they have more than one big gap in their bandwidth allowing spectral transmission. But to the naked eye, they might resemble a filter which passes only one section. You need access to the published spectrograms in order to recognize this. I learned it in relation to simplifying certain complex masking operations in relation to color film printing. Some of these filters are now rare and expensive.

Another problem is how enlarger light sources differ, and therefore differ in how these respective filters might respond. I have a variety of enlarger heads - traditional CMY subtractive, RGB true additive with selective panel controls, and blue-green cold light. And I have a big selection of filters on hand, glass as well as true Wratten gels, plus some other types too.

Typical tungsten halogen colorhead "white" light is actually skewed warm and yellowish, unless filtration corrected, but is at least a continuous "blackbody" spectrum, whereas most LED light tends to have a discontinuous spectrum, making behavior in relation to colored filters more difficult to predict.

It's far easier to discuss basic split printing where you really need only two filters - deep green and deep blue, plus of course, unfiltered enlarger light itself. Therefore, any usable enlarger head must be ale to pass ample amounts of both blue and green light through.

DREW WILEY said:

There are certain filters where you can kill two birds with one stone, because they have more than one big gap in their bandwidth allowing spectral transmission. But to the naked eye, they might resemble a filter which passes only one section. You need access to the published spectrograms in order to recognize this. I learned it in relation to simplifying certain complex masking operations in relation to color film printing. Some of these filters are now rare and expensive.

Another problem is how enlarger light sources differ, and therefore differ in how these respective filters might respond. I have a variety of enlarger heads - traditional CMY subtractive, RGB true additive with selective panel controls, and blue-green cold light. And I have a big selection of filters on hand, glass as well as true Wratten gels, plus some other types too.

It's far easier to discuss basic split printing where you really need only two filters - deep green and deep blue, plus of course, unfiltered enlarger light itself.

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Ok but regardless of the filter’s transmission characteristics, you can never get more than a single grade of contrast at a time so I don’t see how you are killing more than one bird with one stone?

I think part of the reason people often get mixed up about how VC printing works is that they are thinking about the colours they see projected onto the easel rather than thinking about wavelengths (which is all that the paper cares about).

VC papers are composed of two or more "layers" of distinct emulsions. So it's how, and to what degree, you respectively expose these which determines the final contrast characteristics.

When it comes to understanding real VC paper response, it's helpful to forget all that "grade this, grade that" talk. That's a misleading holdover from back in actual graded paper days. And even back then, grade spacings could vary brand to brand. But if you must refer to it - YES, you can indeed expose more than one grade-effect at the same time. It's easier to consciously control things by separating the high contrast and low contrast portions into separate exposures via sequential split printing.

Yet there are advanced ways to do simultaneous localized split printing, starting with certain masking protocols. These have the advantage of greater print to print consistency - automated selective dodging and burning, if you want to think about it that way.
There are really quite a few tricks to choose from, if one feels the need to go that far, or enjoys that kind of experimentation.

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Milpool said:

Ok but regardless of the filter’s transmission characteristics, you can never get more than a single grade of contrast at a time so I don’t see how you are killing more than one bird with one stone?

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I’m not sure why you say that. Maybe I’m not following. A hard blue and a hard green filter are used separately for different exposure times to balance out to a grade. Then if you dodge the skies during green exposure and burn the skies in blue, they are higher contrast than the rest of the print.

You can’t do that with a single grade, so I have no experience in this it just sounds obvious to me.

Many people still think of VC paper like a segmented centipede. But it is really more like two unsegmented long worms mating together.

Bill Burk said:

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I’m not sure why you say that. Maybe I’m not following. A hard blue and a hard green filter are used separately for different exposure times to balance out to a grade. Then if you dodge the skies during green exposure and burn the skies in blue, they are higher contrast than the rest of the print.

You can’t do that with a single grade, so I have no experience in this it just sounds obvious to me.

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Drew said it was killing two birds with one stone in a single exposure.

All kinds of things are possible. For instance, conceive of a registered matte mylar mask with differential colored dye painted on it. I seldom do it that way, but will if it happens to be what works most efficiently. Of course, it's a lot easier to do that precisely if you have a large negative to begin with. But it wasn't what I was implying when trying to explain certain seemingly unusual filters. I really don't like being too technical about all this. Experiment and have fun.

logan2z said:

Then is it fair to conclude that prints made on graded papers - like those made by the early 'masters' of photography - are inherently inferior to those made on multigrade papers with split grade printing as it is described here?

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If you want to put me on the spot then my answer is yes they would be able to make better prints with the modern papers , but also remember that the masters were able to control their workflow much better than anyone on this or other forums and had a style and look with their prints.

Sudek's prints are flat compared to Brett Weston's prints, Edward Weston's nautilus glows and is very open, Joel Peter Witkin's prints are gritty and sublime at the same time, - ( this is where the difference is in their workflow since they were using single grade papers and had to tailor their negatives much more aggressively.
I love all their work for what it is and I too use graded papers when I feel it is correct or the client wants. The OP's question is

Can a straight print match the nuances of split grade print?​

I believe the answer is no, but like the chameleon printer I am will say it does not matter what paper one uses.


I happen to bridge the time gap in professional printing where in the first part of my career all we had was graded paper and the second half , papers like Ilford Warmtone came on the market. There was nothing worse than trying to print a style where the client wanted high contrast look but did not want the highlights to burn out, Wasted paper burning in areas that at the end of the day looked poor, there were those who would use hot water on highlight areas to bring them up faster, there were those who pre flashed the paper to hope for detail in highlights and yes there were those who used two developers , soft and hard to print and those who would make very complex highlight reduction masks to get a result.. I have done all of these with various degrees of success. When Ilford introduced its Ilford Warmtone paper , worldwide professional printers were given 5 boxes of paper from Ilford to print and decide which one was the best in their opinion, I picked the red box like many other and it was the current emulsion we all worked with.
I can say from that time my printing life got much simpler as we were all advised from Ilford tech reps to try split printing, I ended up with a low and high filter approach, not to be confused with the 0 and 5 group, but rather I pick a starting contrast grade based on the original scene brightness range and of course the quality of the processed negative, usually the starting filter if used would produce what I call a soft print and I make it about 15% lighter than I normally would print. Then based on the SBR and NCR I would give a hit of grade 5 , some times more or less to bring in the bottom half (shadows) .

As for my own work can tailor the negative to the grade of paper I want to print on, graded papers are fantastic, I grew up on Ilford Ilfomar, kodak ectalure and the original Picker Brilliant.
I have not doubt in my mind quality printers of the past would use split printing techniques when appropriate.

DREW WILEY said:

All kinds of things are possible. For instance, conceive of a registered matte mylar mask with differential colored dye painted on it. I seldom do it that way, but will if it happens to be what works most efficiently. Of course, it's a lot easier to do that precisely if you have a large negative to begin with. But it wasn't what I was implying when trying to explain certain seemingly unusual filters. I really don't like being too technical about all this. Experiment and have fun.

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This was called contour masking and is the basis for dodge and burn patterns and was extremely popular in the 70's and 80's - if one was using larger films then much like Karsh a retoucher would come in and apply red cocine and pencil work.
My first job was for a wedding photographer who in the 50's and 60's would use this hand application and then make contact prints on Cycora paper , quite lovely.

Bill Burk said:

[/

I’m not sure why you say that. Maybe I’m not following. A hard blue and a hard green filter are used separately for different exposure times to balance out to a grade. Then if you dodge the skies during green exposure and burn the skies in blue, they are higher contrast than the rest of the print.

You can’t do that with a single grade, so I have no experience in this it just sounds obvious to me.

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Even without the dodge or burn you will get a print that any single filter could provide.

cliveh said:

Can a straight print match the nuances of split grade print?​

In answer to the original question, I would say no. But do you want those nuances? And do they improve the visual impact of the print?

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good point, many people myself included go for a look rather than absolute tonalitys from shadow to highlight.

Pieter12 said:

Neil Selkirk wrote extensively about printing Diane Arbus' negatives using varying proportions of Dektol and Selector-Soft to get different grades of contrast from a single-grade paper. https://www.neilselkirk.com/in-the-darkroom

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This was standard practice to have not only two dev trays but a water bath between , as well pre flash .

If you are using filters like the Ilford MG filter set, then split-grade printing is the only way to get intermediate grades, that is if you need more nuance than the half-grade increments built into the set.

Using a color head gives you continuous variable contrast control within the possible range of contrasts available from it, but it might not get you maximum or minimum contrast. In that case, you can always resort to other filters.

But, when comparing a print made with a single base exposure filtered from a color head and one made with a combination of two overall exposures from, say, #00 and #5 filters, and given that the proportions of green to blue light is the same in both prints, you won't see any difference.

The question arises then, if you can really achieve equal proportions of green to blue, given the spectral overlaps with single-filtration printing vs printing with extreme low- and high-contrast filters. If so, which I believe to be the case, then one should be able to make identical prints either way. If not, then not.

The real advantage of split-grade printing is that one can expose different areas of the print to different contrasts. Therein lies the real difference.

That said, premium graded papers of yesteryear (Oriental Seagull G, Brilliant, even Ilfobrom) had a better separation of delicate high values than any of the VC papers I have used. I have prints of glaciers with subtle gradations of paper-base white to light grey that I don't seem to be able to reproduce on VC papers; I have to print the brightest whites down to just grey before I get the separation of tones I want, then bleach the highlights back to white.

I'd submit that good graded papers were better in this regard than the VC papers we have today.

Best,

Doremus

Sirius Glass said:

Yes a straight printed single grade can match a split grade print, but that is very rare and that is part of the reason for split grade printing.

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I use the Chromega color head with the strongest magenta and then the strongest yellow filters. The order does not matter, however there are usually larger areas of variation in magenta then yellow unless I have a large sky area.

Carnie Bob said:

good point, many people myself included go for a look rather than absolute tonalitys from shadow to highlight.

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Bob, can I take it the "look" you mention is dependent of the subject and context? If so, I think I understand what you mean.

cliveh said:

Bob, can I take it the "look" you mention is dependent of the subject and context? If so, I think I understand what you mean.

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Yes , as there are hundreds of LOOKS over the last 130 years of silver printing. David Baileys look is different than Jock Sturges, Ansel Adams is different from Sudek.

The photographer defines the look .

Carnie Bob said:

Yes , as there are hundreds of LOOKS over the last 130 years of silver printing. David Baileys look is different than Jock Sturges, Ansel Adams is different from Sudek.

The photographer defines the look .

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As long as the photographer prints his own negatives, or his printer is in sympathy with his look.

cliveh said:

As long as the photographer prints his own negatives, or his printer is in sympathy with his look.

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Yes , this is why I refer to my printing style as a chameleon . I will match various styles to photographers needs before I start working on large scale projects. Its a very important part of printing for others IMO.

Carnie Bob said:

Yes , this is why I refer to my printing style as a chameleon . I will match various styles to photographers needs before I start working on large scale projects. Its a very important part of printing for others IMO.

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I'm sure you are quite correct Bob, but as not to hijack this thread, a question is worthy of a separate thread.

In all this technical exchange, never forget the immense power of the warmth of your finger tip or a cotton swab soaked in a chemical of your choice (with print out of the tray of course) for improved localised control. It can give you subtleties no printing technique ever will.

Part of the problem here is that some kind of universal answer is being solicited as if a standardized situation exists. Is split printing "always" better? - Is every negative the same? Is every kind of paper the same? Does everyone seek the same look? Of course not.

Split printing is a valuable tool, but just one tool among many worth having in your kit.

Doremus - I have a considerable number of prints of glistening ice and snow, on both older graded papers and newer VC papers. The biggest improvement to the highlights came with pyro (PMK) development of the negatives themselves. Still, earlier VC paper were quite disappointing in this respect. The best later ones were not. And in either case, supplementary unsharp masking could be employed if necessary to bring a level of tonal control to the full range of values, including highlights and deep tones, superior to conventional techniques, including split printing. But there is no one silver bullet. The point is to adapt your materials and technique to the desired endpoint, not to go "over the top" for sake of technique itself (a common mistake of many adolescent learning curves, so to speak).

Frankly, some of my early negs were overdeveloped, and hell to print per highlights even on great graded papers like Seagull G, Brilliant Bromide, Ilfobrom Galerie, and the brief episode of Kodak Elite. In recent years, I've reprinted some of those same negs much better and with considerable ease using MGWT along with simple split printing tweaks. The only problem is that I now have to accept the warm tone that comes with the territory. MG Cooltone is a nice paper in its own right, but not quite as malleable.

But once I had my negative densities worked out way back when, graded Seagull became my critter of choice for cool tone images until they changed it and made it anemic. My learning curve gained traction in numerous ways, and now I can easily handle high contrast situations much better than in my early years, despite the loss of one great paper after another.

I have never resorted to heavy-handed minus or compensation film dev to try to tame highlights, nor flashing, nor soft print developers - all of which tend to crush the wild sparkle and raw power out of those icy mountains scenes I so prize. I have experimented with those methods. There are better ways to do it in my opinion. But the more tools one has at their disposal to choose from, the better.

One tool which has not been mentioned yet is that, yes, there are times when a top end apo enlarging lens will in fact deliver more highlight microtonality than a garden variety lens. Somebody will probably challenge that; but I can actually see the difference in my own prints, and Bob Carnie would probably back me up, because he uses some of the same lenses for similar reasons.

Apo Lens is a game changer, also if one uses about 10- 20mm focal length than normal.. 90mm for medium format negs , 180mm for 4 x 5 negs give you a better coverage, Also I use a 250w bulb in my enlarger rather than the 150w recommended which gives me more power which results in lower time of projection and a possible smaller aperture on the lens . (not sure if this helps ) but all three combined seem to be my norm.

Something that occurred to me while I was sleeping last night, or trying too -is the dynamics of this conversation the OP has brought up, it has been a hotly contested subject for as long as I have been involved in the forums, for over 20 years now.

Can straight print match the nuances of split grade print?​

this was my golden moment at around 2.30 in the morning and I am kind of surprised that I never thought of this before.

When I think of Split Printing I am influenced by my work with PS and how by making layers and creating specific curves for different areas of the image and then painting that tonal shift into the areas I am targeting I can create a more vibrant or nuanced image.
Once you learn simple methods on the computer of building up tonalities and practice this quite a bit , the correlation between the digital and analogue methods become more clearer (for me at least)
I think the same way under an enlarger, I look at areas of the image and think what can I do to improve or drive the image to the look I am trying to achieve for the client. I do this by manipulating the filters in the base exposures and of course as most mention use dodging, burning , flashing , or other tricks to finish the piece.

Since 1976 my complete family income has been derived from manipulating a negative or positive in tonal values onto film or paper. This is all I have done each week for over 50 years so this question is kind of in my wheelhouse.

I have worked on some very significant projects over the years, and in some cases worked on prints that were done by other printers years before that I know were not done with split printing. In one street scene ( high lighting spread) with some voodoo on my part a complete building emerged out of the highlight areas that was not present in the original print. This did cause a bit of debate with the curator and my print was shown in the gallery but it was kind of strange as in the book the image in question was minus the building.

The other night I was at a show where photographers of the past had their best work on the wall, and I must agree with others that some of the old papers really , really look good . The image of interest was by Ed Gajdel and it was a image of Leanord Cohen, simply beautiful Agfa Portriga print that was exposed by Ed.
So I hope those in the other camp here do not think I only think Split Printing is the way to go , I do not think that way.