Determining Correct Contrast Level?

[bg552]

First of all, hi to everyone. Just stumbled upon this forum while looking for answers to a few of my darkroom questions. I am new to film and am currently taking a class in darkroom photography.

The issue that I'm having is with finding the "proper" level of contrast for my prints. How is contrast defined in terms of what is too gray or too blown out? Is there any kind of benchmark trick to determining what looks the best? Being new to photography, I am struggling to pinpoint what i should be trying to acheive. This could also be related to my lack of knowledge in terms of selecting the best exposure on my test strips. Thanks!

Edit: Working in 35mm, besler 23c II w/ ilford vc paper, tmax developer - if this information might help out in any way.

 

[Morry Katz]

Start with a #2 filter and at least 1/2 sheet of 8X10 paper. Make your series of test exposures - and see what looks right, looks best to YOU! With the large test strip, you can more easily judge contrast and exposure. The fun of printing your own is being able to control it all...so that the print looks like you want it to look.

Morry Katz - Lethbridge Canada

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

The 'correct contrast' is the contrast grade that produces the print that pleases you the most. Don't try to please anyone else - it won't work.

Now, how to find this ideal contrast grade...

When you are just starting out the best course may be to make prints of the same negative at different contrast grades - by definition one will please you more than the others and so will the be at the 'correct contrast'. This doesn't mean you need to make 11x14's at each grade - a waste of paper, in most cases - a 4x5 or smaller test print of the most important part of the image is all that is normally needed. This will begin to give you a 'feel' for the way changes in contrast grade effect the image.

When you get comfortable with this method you may want to look at using an enlarging meter. The problem with meters is that they give you what you ask for - and that may not be what you want. Therefore, some experience at knowing what contrast and tones you want in your prints is needed before you try and use a meter. In order to not be too self-serving with this answer I will point out there are two enlarging metering systems to choose from: Darkroom Automation (my firm, in Cleveland, Ohio) [click on the underlined bit for web site]and RH Designs [ditto] (a British firm, though don't let the Boston Tea Party and the War of Independence influence you). The other choices in enlarging meters are not worth bothering with - their inadequate performance is the reason for the heretofore horrid reputation of enlarging meters.

 

[sun of sand]

Instead of beginning with a certain "correct" grade that may influence your final decision go through the whole series of grades and then choose from them

I think that sometimes people will hear that grade 2 is correct and will tend to not push or pull their contrast too far from that grade 2 thinking they've gone too from of the "sweet spot" to get a good print
I'm no master printer ..don't creatively print all that much
But I see a lot of flat, dull photographs.
I don't believe you can get the best print from a straight print no matter how techically sound your entire process is, either


Do a series of grades for the entire photograph ..full sheet
Look those over and choose your favorite contrast grade for each important feature


Dodge and Burn using those contrast grades where needed

Practice


There is no knowledge or formula to learn

 

[ozphoto]

I would begin with Grade 2 as a starting point and from there, increase and decrease grades to see which contrast suits the neg best. It all depends upon your working method - from film exposure through to printing the final image.

When I first started out, I was given a book as a gift: Black-And-White Darkroom Techniques (Kodak Workshop)
http://www.amazon.com/Black-White-D...=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256368865&sr=8-8

It has a lot of great information in it, and I enjoyed tweaking my processes until I got it right. It had a piece on matching film to the camera's meter (or handheld one) which I investigated. At the time I was using an A1 - and once I had done the exercise, most of my negs could be printed at Grade 2-21/2 without fail.

This exercise may be too tedious for many people, but it has saved me a few $$ in paper and guesswork. Even today, I can still print 95% of the negs exposed on my A1 with certainty on Grade 2 - 21/2 paper.

I've changed to an EOS1, and must admit, the exposures from it are not quite so consistent - maybe I should test it out as well - unfortunately time is not on my side at present with work commitments.

Regardless of whether you decide to investigate deeply or just learn by trial-and-error, it's a good little book that I enjoyed reading and learning from. Fairly cheap from Amazon, so may be something to consider.

 

[bg552]

Thank you all for the info. I think that part of the issue is not cutting large enough test strips. I need to see more of the image in order to figure out which option is most pleasing.

Just to clarify what i have read, a #2 "filter" on my 23C II would be 0 yellow and 0 magenta. So I am basically just shooting the raw light first to see which way i need to go as far as filters?

 

[ozphoto]

Yes. If 0Y & 0M = Grade 2 on your enlarger that would be a good starting point; from this first exposure, you will be able to see if you need more or less contrast to get a good print from your neg.

 

[bg552]

I guess the only other issue for me as a beginner would be knowing IF i need more or less contrast in what I see. Is there an easy way for me to determine that?

 

[ann]

using a grade 2 filter will look different than defaulting to the paper "grade". so, i would suggest using about 20 magenta as a starting point


in my classes we use grade 3 as the starting point, this comes from experience with the specific equipment and testing with the developer film combo


as you gain more experience you will have more success if your negatives are consistence, then you won't have to bounce around with adjusting the filters with printing.

Fill the "learning bin" and have fun.

 

[squinonescolon]

In my opinion the best technique to use is the one from Michael and Paula http://www.michaelandpaula.com/mp/onprinting.html Go down to the section titled "Outflanking the print" It boils down to this: Always assume that you are wrong. When you print—specially when you are a beginner, you must always assume that the best grade, contrast, exposure you've chosen might not be the perfect one and try one "above" and one "below".

We are assuming you have the base exposure correct, no dodging or burning at this stage. Start with the 2 grade, then do one "above" kind of far away from 2, like 2 1/2 or 3, and one "below" like 1 1/2 or 1. You want to be far away enough that you are definitely wrong on that as well. You have to know what's wrong first, to then be able to know what's right. Now you have to decide what's the most important part of the photograph, this is very important, you can't go any further before you decide this. This forces you to decide early on what the photograph is about and will help you decide how to proceed.

Now that you have several examples of your important area at different contrast grades, you can take the next guess and print at that grade. You should be close to what you want in contrast for you main area of interest. Maybe make two other tests slightly above and below your latest guess to be sure. Now make a full size sheet at your desired print size. Look at the darks, look at the whites. Do they fall where you want them? We are looking at broad areas, not tiny little details.

If your darks are overexposed you can dodge them from the main exposure or reduce your development a little bit, watch your other areas, if they're not dark enough burn the areas a little after you main exposure. Look at the whites, you can dodge or burn the same way. Now you should have something that should be mostly balanced.

Start second guessing yourself again. What if I tried a harder contrast grade overall, or maybe softer? A little bit longer base exposure, a little less, what would that look like?. Expose full sheets of those. Once you've exhausted most of those questions you should have yourself as close as a master print that your current abilities can produce. You will use a lot of paper. But if you don't see what the possibilities are, you will never be able to capture and express the feeling that made you take the photograph in the first place.

Now if you have followed this you would have exposed at least 5 test strips and as many as 6 full sheets. That's the cost of learning. You can try one of the meters after you get this right. Your expenditure in paper might or might not get smaller. Mine has just a little bit, and I've been printing for many years.

Next question is do you "always" have to burn your highlights. Do you always have to dodge your darks. Maybe you're overdeveloping your film, maybe you're are underexposing. Your prints will scream at you how you should expose and develop your film, listen to them! Good luck.

 

[Martin Aislabie]

The issue that I'm having is with finding the "proper" level of contrast for my prints.

Experience – sadly, is the only way to find out

Select a Negative that you like – you will be seeing quite a lot of this photograph

Start with making the best Grade 2 (or no filtration) print you can manage with a single negative - write the Grade on the back of the print

Then try printing the best Grade 1 and Grade 3 prints you can using the same negative - again write the Grade on the back of the prints

Then look at the prints in a well lit room.

Its worth being able to compare your results against a good set of photographs from a more experienced photographer - ask your teacher/mentor/lecturer

One of the prints should be obviously wrong visually - either too flat (gray all over) or too harsh (too black and white with not enough grey)

Of the remaining two prints, one will probably look better than the other.

If the better looking print is either the G1 or G3 print - then you need to make a further print going even further with the contrast and repeat until you have gone too far.

If the better one is the G2 print, then you are lucky and can move on to producing G1.5 and G2.5 examples

Almost everyone starts by producing initially flat grey muddy prints and then swaps to making very contrasty, soot black and chalk white prints as they hone their skills.

It is worth taking the time to learn the effects of Paper Grades on the appearance of a single print as it will help you in the long term.

However, don’t stifle and stagnate by constantly repeating the same print in an endless loop of trying to produce a perfect print – OK is good enough at this point

While it’s fine to listen to your fiends/peers/colleagues advice as to what they think of the prints but act on what YOU think is right or wrong

Have fun

Martin

 

[Allen Friday]

I think we have a chicken and egg situation here. You want to know what is the proper level of contrast for your negatives. To a certain extent, that is backwards. Ideally, you should develop your negatives so that the majority of them print at a certain contrast level. I try to develop my negs to print on grade 2. Others use grade 1 or 3. Which is preferred is up to you. If you can, look at as many prints as you can by others and find out at what contrast level they were printed. Choose your favorite. If you don't have access to prints, just pick a contrast level and go with it until you have more experience. You can always change later. Since grade 2 is in the middle of grades 0 to 5, I recommend starting with that grade as your goal.

Once you have selected a grade as your goal, you can work on your film speed setting (EI, which will set the shadow values recorded on the film) and development times (which will set highlights on the film) to get negatives which print consistently well at that grade. To nail down the EI and development time, you should do a "minimum time for maximum black" test. There are lots of posts on Apug regarding the test. This test also will give you a standard time for your contact prints and a starting time for exposing your test strips. You mention in your post that this is a problem for you. .

Once you have nailed the exposure index and development time for your film, you should get good straight prints with little or no effort. Then, you will only need to adjust the print contrast to allow for bright scenes (high contrast so will need a lower contrast paper) and flat scenes (low contrast so will require a higher contrast paper).

 

[keithwms]

The issue that I'm having is with finding the "proper" level of contrast for my prints. How is contrast defined in terms of what is too gray or too blown out? Is there any kind of benchmark trick to determining what looks the best?

Sure. Your neg will have a contrast index (CI); this will likely vary a bit from neg to neg due to differences in exposure and development. In my opinion, you don't really need to know the CI precisely, but you do need to be able to judge whether it is large or small. If you want to learn about CI you could look up "step wedge" here and you will find all kinds of nice tips.

I will assume you are working with multigrade paper and a set of contrast filters. These make it possible to get a good print with any well-exposed and properly developed neg... whatever the contrast index.

First thing is to identify the thinnest and the thickest portions of the neg that you're working with; normally you can just eyeball it. You (usually) don't want those portions to posterize. Posterization is 'clumping' of adjacent tones... so that instead of getting nice smooth variations you get blobs of one tone that are usually not appealing. Think of early digital highlights- they were often horribly posterized, and this also went by the name of 'banding.' We analoguers like our knees and our toes and we usually expose accordingly. Anyway, to avoid posterization, you simply use individual contrast filters and make test strip exposures for each grade. You can test exposure at several different grades on one sheet of paper; this is very useful especially for fiber paper because there will be some change in contrast after drydown, so you want to test neighboring grades side-by-side so that you can compare. N.b. you will never know that your print could be better unless you try neighboring contrast grades. The eye (well, my eye at least) is just too accommodating. Comparing results side by side will give you great confidence.

In a nutshell: you first look for the right combination of contrast grade and exposure that doesn't give highlight or shadow posterization.

Now, after doing these tests with individual contrast filters, you may well conclude that no single contrast filter gets you what you want. For example, it could be that shadows look great but highlights... not so much. Then behold the power of multigrade: split grade printing. This is a truly great innovation. What you do is combine exposures with a high contrast and a low contrast filter. It also allows you to avoid posterization while also tuning the slope of the tone curve in the midtones. So you can get snappy highlights and shadows and nice midtones of variable contrast. There are some good ways to do this with graded paper as well, but it involves toning and bleaching and such.

Split grade is far more simple than it sounds... you can prepare a test strip matrix on one test sheet that gives you all the combinations of exposures for any pair of contrast filters. What I do is make test strips at one contrast grade in one direction, then repeat the test strips with another filter in the perpendicular direction. So you get a matrix of combinations of different relative exposures at two grades and voila, you know after one test sheet exactly how to get the best result.

Be patient, enjoy, have fun... and experiment! Be happy in the knowledge that you can get pretty much any result you want... if you only know beforehand what it is that you want. So take time to imagine the print you're after, then you will be able to use that vision to guide you. Some people are able to use that vision of their print all the way back to exposure... these are those quirky BTZS people. They have printed manifestos and software and paraphernalia that one can buy. Now, these BTZS advocates are an odd sort: they assert powers of imagination that enable them to see the print even before they have exposed their film. I find it amusing to associate with these people and observe their ways. But as for me, I am not so disciplined. My approach, favouring intuition and all-out nutty experimentation, might better be described as WTFITZS, which means that I shoot my scene long before I've put any thought into whether or how I will print it. I then get penalized a bit in the print phase and find myself scratching my head in the darkroom deciding what direction to go in. But I actually find that darkroom discovery enjoyable. So I haven't given into the BTZS religion... yet

 

[Jeff Kubach]

Like the previous posts mention start with #2 and work from there. Take your time, it will come to you eventually. And have fun!

Jeff

 

[cowanw]

While not everybody or every print wants a bit of pure white and a bit of pure black all the time; I think it is helpful to go for that as a beginner. Up the time or up the grade until you get just a bit of both and you will at least know that
you will have got as much as the basic exposure will give you. I found it helpful to get to that point and then try for fancier.

 

[MattKing]

First of all, hi to everyone. Just stumbled upon this forum while looking for answers to a few of my darkroom questions. I am new to film and am currently taking a class in darkroom photography.

The issue that I'm having is with finding the "proper" level of contrast for my prints. How is contrast defined in terms of what is too gray or too blown out? Is there any kind of benchmark trick to determining what looks the best? Being new to photography, I am struggling to pinpoint what i should be trying to acheive. This could also be related to my lack of knowledge in terms of selecting the best exposure on my test strips. Thanks!

Edit: Working in 35mm, besler 23c II w/ ilford vc paper, tmax developer - if this information might help out in any way.

1st, welcome to APUG, and thanks for subscribing!

You indicate that you are taking a class in darkroom photography. I would assume that means that there is an instructor, who one would hope is able to identify an example print that exhibits a reasonably good level of contrast, and an example negative, or even better one of your negatives, that also exhibits a reasonably useful level of contrast.

I would ask your instructor to help you pick out a good example print, and a good example negative, so that you have something to compare to.

With respect to assessing your negatives, there are a number of good publications. I've always liked the Kodak Darkroom Dataguides. Here is a link to a useful webpage as well:

http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Assessing-negatives-4682

Oh, and have fun!

Matt

 

[timk]

a couple of tips that might make this process easier for you:

- Use test strips to determine your EXPOSURE based on the HIGHLIGHTS and ignoring the shadows - then keep that exposure and adjust the CONTRAST until you have your SHADOWS where you want them. Then you can make fine adjustments to both exposure and contrast.
- It's easier to start with a lower contrast and work your way up, rather than harder and work your way down.

- It helps if you have correctly developed negatives to start with, if you're finding you need to print a film at the extremes (grade 5 or grade 00), this process is much harder. A properly exposed & developed negative usually prints somewhere around grade 2-3, but that depends on a lot of different factors.
- For practice, photograph a scene with a good range of tones in it, including things that are easily identifiable as white and black with texture. Perfect example is the white towel and black cat scenario, both objects represent both extremes and the challenge is to print both objects showing the correct colour with texture/detail.

 

[frank]

I suggest that you start with a negative that holds a full range of tones (white, white with visible texture, greys, shadow with details, black) and make 5 prints at contrast grade 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, using print exposure time to maintain visible texture in light areas that contain this. Post these prints on your darkroom wall for reference. Do this once to see the effect, and save yourself time and materials in the future.

 

[Ronald Moravec]

A proper test subject is required. A nice grey scale wedge or a subject with detailed blacks and whites.

A black wool cloth and textured white fabric in the neg or a portrait with very dark hair and the white eyes.

Print the neg so the whites are correct, neither grey or without detail. The look at the blacks. If they are grey and not black enough, then develope 10% less and repeat. If the blacks are totally black without detail, then you need less time in film developer.

A good test subject is paramout importance. It needs a detail white and black and you need to make a neg that shows them both on #2 paper with no burn od dodging.

There is no way other than to test. Development controls the highlight density. exposure controls the shadows. THIS IS THE GOLDEN RULE. IT NEVER CHANGES no matter thr film or developer although a few developers will get a little more shadow detail, film speed.

You can do the reverse also. Print the darks to be dark but still show detail. Then look at the textured whites. If they are blown out, then there is too much density there. If they are grey, then you need more density so they hold back more light.

By changing development time, the enlarger exposure will change because the time required to render a white properly will change. The blacks are kind of a follow on.

Only make 6 exposures. Then pull 12" of film in the dark and develope that much. Discard the developer.
Dry with a hair dryer under low heat. They are just tests. Do not do this with good pics.