adding degree 5, the copy takes a tremendous turn and I lose detail in the low tones.
Forget the shadows in 0, 5 will take care of that. Just evaluate the highlight detail in 0.I make a test strip in grade 0. And evaluated the shadows,
The high lights handled it with grade 5 and it is only for contrast
Giving more Grade 5 (Magenta or Blue) has the purpose of making the dark values darker without affecting the light areas. That is what it is supposed to do.Forget the shadows in 0, 5 will take care of that. Just evaluate the highlight detail in 0.
Yes. That is why I questioned your statement in post #3 of evaluating the shadows on the grade 0 test strip.Giving more Grade 5 (Magenta or Blue) has the purpose of making the dark values darker without affecting the light areas. That is what it is supposed to do.
And you can always pre- (or post) flash the paper to get more highlight detail.
Obviously, you need to establish the flash time for each paper in use and be consistent with the method. I have a separate timer and light source at a fixed distance from the table/baseboard.With care. It's easy to make your clean whites turn muddy gray. Make sure your flash exposure is strictly less than what produces any visible density on its own.
For standard split filtering (never mind split burning etc.) you'd make your test strip with Grade 0 until the lightest area where you want to retain detail is correct, then expose a full print or strip with that value and make test strip exposures with Grade 5, which are examined for the darkest area where you want to retain detail.
Now, Grade 5 won't always leave the light areas completely untouched; you may find you need to shorten the Grade 0 exposure slightly if your Grade 5 exposure is long.
If you still need to dodge or burn, you'll do that with the whichever filter covers the area you're working -- if you want to bring back a dark area that went full black without changing the overall dark balance, you'd dodge that area during the Grade 5 exposure, or to darken down a dark area you'd burn that area with Grade 5, but if you have cloud detail that gets lost if you expose to keep whites white in other areas, you'll need to burn that with the Grade 0.
Here is where you are going wrong: judge the highlight details from the 0 filter exposure, not the shadows. The 5 exposure is for shadow detail. In other words, use the 0 filter to determine the white point and the 5 filter over the 0 filter exposure to determine the black point.
However, the paper is more sensitive to grade 0 than grade 5--so unless it is a high contrast negative, establishing the grade 0 exposure first works best. You really have to give a much longer 5 exposure to affect the highlights.While this is correct as far as it goes, you need to be aware that the Grade 5 exposure will most likely have some slight effect on the highlights -- meaning you may have to reduce your Grade 0 exposure slightly to get back the highlight values you originally chose. You won't see this effect if you test for Grade 5 first, but it's much easier to judge the highlight values when the shadows are thin, which is why we usually test the Grade 0 first.
guys, thanks for the comments...However, the paper is more sensitive to grade 0 than grade 5--so unless it is a high contrast negative, establishing the grade 0 exposure first works best. You really have to give a much longer 5 exposure to affect the highlights.
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