Contamination?

The scan murdered the highlights, but side by side the prints are quite different. Ended up using a 3.5 contrast filter, and it worked well. Thanks guys.

Self, Dark. Final. by Anthony J. Martinez, on Flickr

Marco B said:

"WILCO", that's one piece of (internet) jargon I didn't know yet

Click to expand...

I am pretty sure it is a verbal contraction of 'will comply'.

You're correct.

Anthony J. Martinez said:

The scan murdered the highlights, but side by side the prints are quite different. Ended up using a 3.5 contrast filter, and it worked well. Thanks guys.

Click to expand...

Good to hear you finally got a result to your liking. Despite the scan not doing it justice, it still looks like an improvement.

One last tip: try to make a maximum black reference of each paper type you have by simply deliberately exposing a piece of photo paper under normal room light and putting it through the development. It can help to judge the contrast while printing, and determine if you really achieved / used the total range of contrast and maximum black in your print.

I actually did that by accident during one of my darkroom days. I pulled a sheet out, set it on the easel, got distracted by something. Turned on the white light. Talked on the phone for a minute, and then realized what I'd done. That box of paper is finished now, but for the last 15 sheets or so I had references for both white and black.

Thanks again for all the help.

By the way, I think the expired filters that you have might be the first generation ones. They came with a calculator dial, to figure the exposure change for swapping filters.

The second (current) generation has neutral density built in that allows one exposure for 00-3.5, and twice the exposure for 4.0-5.0.

They had a table inside, but yes I have the new filters now and the exposures seem pretty straight forward.