dilemma

Greg Heath · Dec 13, 2008

I got to start printing this week after I finished my darkroom. I posted a portrait of my Son. I had some really old...(1958) gelatin filters that I got for free with the Beseler 45M I found locally.
Anyway I started printing this week, and had posted that portrait.
I took the photo of my Son in our family room with sunlight diffused through the front shear drapes. So not allot of light. I took the picture at about f3.5 or wide open for the Rolleicord II.

Yesterday I picked up some Ilford Polycontrast filters. What a difference !
They fit below the lens. I printed some test strips and then started printing.
Because of the low light situation, I wanted to build some contrast highlighting my Son's face. I finally got the exposure where I think it looks good at
F/11 and 50 seconds and a 2.5 filter.
But after printing about 16 different photos at different times at F/11, I am more confused than ever.
As a beginner how do I decide what a perfect picture is exposure wise that is?

Is it just what I am happy with?

I will post the picture tonight.

I am trying to dodge some light on his face, but when I do, allot of the highlights disappear, which I don't want. I do think that because the negative did not have the correct exposure because of the light available and I set the shutter to quick because I was handholding the camera.
I want his pajamas to appear dark and his face with highlights to appear.
So I need some feedback in how you would do this ?

Greg

Erik L · Dec 13, 2008

Try using your 0 filter to get the highlight tone you want and then switch to a 5 filter for a little zap to the shadows if you are having problems with the contrast. If it is a flat scene this scenario might not work and you are stuck burning and dodging at whatever filter gets you the highlights you are after.
I still don't know what a perfect exposure is I like your idea that it is what you are happy with, as you keep playing that negative and trying different combos of filters etc you will get a feel for what you are after and know approximately how to get there. Just keep going through paper and experimenting and it will sort itself out.
Good Luck
Erik

Greg Heath · Dec 13, 2008

That is a great thought, starting with one filter and then using like a 4 or 5 for some quick highlights. I did not think of that as i am a wet behind the ears beginner. The more I got to fiddling with it, and all 16 photos were hanging (dry) on the line, some washed out because of not enough exposure, so no natural highlights, or me using too high a filter and having his face look to un-natural.
I was trying for a lightness to his cheek facing the light coming in the window which you can see in his eyes, but also at the same time not losing the shadow of the indentations of his finger tips in his cheeks (some definition but no washout).

Even after running all the exposures, the final photos to me are just muddled or flat. I wanted more natural "pop" to his face lighten to draw people to this face. I guess I'm more confused now than when I started, probably because I didn't really have a plan when I started but developed the thought halfway through the printing. Next time I will have a better plan, and I will post the pic...

df cardwell · Dec 13, 2008

Make a picture that you kind of like. Wash it, dry it. Have a beer.

Look at it for a couple days.

Go make another print.

Bruce Osgood · Dec 13, 2008

You may want to get a book on printing and I would suggest Les McLeans' Creative Black & White Photography. He demonstrates Split Grade printing as Erik describes and a lot of other information. He has a web site:
http://www.lesmcleanphotography.com/

Greg Heath · Dec 13, 2008

Great suggestion for the book, opening a bottle of Red right now. Lots to ponder..

Thomas Bertilsson · Dec 13, 2008

Greg, when you're split grade printing, you have to expand your thinking. Grade 0 is, as previously mentioned, used to establish the highlights. But it's also going to affect your midtones, which is where your skin tones lie. Same goes for the Grade 5 filter - it will not just affect your shadows, but your midtones as well.

A couple of things. Stop your enlarger lens down so that you have time to do dodging. I use a cut out piece of the black plastic that my printing paper comes in, taped to a piece of steel wire. The closer to the enlarger lens you hold it, the larger area it dodges.
Make test strips - the first for the grade 0 filtration. Pick the time exposure you like the best for highlights, then repeat that exposure on a full sheet of paper. Then on top of that base exposure make a Grade 5 test strip. Now develop and pick the total values that you like the best.

Now here comes the hard part - you have to figure out how much of your Grade 0 AND your Grade 5 exposure you have to dodge to get to what looks right on his face. There is no rhyme or reason or direct method for this - it's all about your taste and what you like, and it takes practice to get there. Be critical, move that dodging tool around to make an unobtrusive dodge in the frame.

This is where dfcardwell's advice comes in handy. Have a brew, look at your print, think about it, and then print it again until you're happy.

- Thomas

glbeas · Dec 13, 2008

And remember, drydown will cause highlight detail to appear where it was blank while wet. Don't judge the effect of the filters until you have a thoroughly dry print to look at.

fschifano · Dec 13, 2008

And after you've done all that, start looking at the quality of the light you had to work with when you snapped the picture. Before long, you'll learn to recognize what works and what doesn't, and you won't need to perform quite as many gymnastics in the darkroom.

Greg Heath · Dec 13, 2008

Here is the print

Here is the dry print.

f/11 at 48 seconds

2.5 Ilford Filter

No Dodging done

Ilford Rc Deluxe glossy

I will consider any ideas..

thanks for those ideas given..

time to go drink wine with the neighbors....

Thomas Bertilsson · Dec 13, 2008

In my opinion this has exquisite tonality. You could consider a higher contrast filter, like a 3.5 to get the crisper whites you seem to be looking for. But I really think that these muted tones are very beautiful in their own right. I don't feel as if anything is lacking from this print, at all. Well done!
- Thomas

Erik L · Dec 13, 2008

Nothing wrong with that one Greg, it looks great!

Greg Heath · Dec 13, 2008

thanks

It is always helpful, for someone else to look...

I appreciate it. I appreciate the constructive criticism. It's the only way I'm going to get better learning via book and APUG.

When I first started to print this...I tried it with a 5 just to see what would happen...Whoa !...Bleached out whites...

and I wanted some smoothness from it because he is just 4 and wanted that boyish, young, unrehearsed, beautiful skin he has.

I tried a 3 and 3.5 filter, but the Dark colors of the ottoman he is leaning on and his one piece pajama, came out too dark with no shadow in the folds. I even tried to dodge his face to get the brilliance, but then I lost the midtones of his face and the small shadow indentations of his fingertips, so I just used the 2.5 filter with no dodging. Maybe I could try it again..this time with slight dodging...

One question..

For best results does it matter when you do the dodging?

I was doing it while the whole print was being exposed, not separately, so maybe in 40 second print I was doing it for maybe 6-8 seconds throughout the process, a couple seconds here and there.

I still need to upgrade my system, with a timer, and grain focuser...
I'm still counting in my head.

I also was amazed at what the slightest amount of dust particle does to a print. So I installed a Hepa/Ion machine...

Keep the ideas coming, I love it.

Greg

Greg Heath · Dec 14, 2008

Thomas Bertilsson said:
In my opinion this has exquisite tonality. You could consider a higher contrast filter, like a 3.5 to get the crisper whites you seem to be looking for. But I really think that these muted tones are very beautiful in their own right. I don't feel as if anything is lacking from this print, at all. Well done!
- Thomas

Thomas, You mentioned using a higher contrast filter. If I go from a 2.5 to 3.5 without changing the enlarger height, how can I figure out the new exposure time. So far I have been guessing, and nearly doubling it..

Is there a chart that Ilford makes ? or somewhere on the web I can go to get something like this that will calculate the increased timing for a change up or down for filters. I don't want to waste all my paper...

Greg

Erik L · Dec 14, 2008

Greg, for grades 4 through 5 you would double your exposure. 00 - 3.5 no compensation is required. It doesn't matter when you dodge just so long as you hold back the calculated time. I usually do it all at once.

Larry Bullis · Dec 14, 2008

NOT BAD AT ALL! As Thomas said. A very good effort.

But I gotta say, all the advice is very well intended but it's given by people who already know how. I've taught beginning Futo-gruphy now for about 35 years in Community Colleges, and I've learned a few things over that time about how people learn these skills. In my humble opinion, if you get into split grade printing and other advanced techniques as a rank beginner, it is going to be very hard for you to learn the basics which, if you have them, would make it much easier for you to learn those techniques later on, and not that much later at that. Of course you CAN learn that way, but you will waste a lot of time and blow through a LOT of materials -- you know, $$$.

I don't encourage my students to burn or dodge, even, until they demonstrate that they can handle exposure and contrast. Why? Because if I don't throw out the sea-anchor to keep them from just going for it, very often they try to fix things that ain't broke, and what they end up with is broke things that ain't fixed. I had one student who insisted on burning/dodging everything instead of learning to control contrast with the filters. In one lousy quarter (ten weeks) he went through $750 worth of paper without producing a single convincing print! I told him that our department offered courses in painting and drawing; since that was what he was trying to do, why not just take the appropriate course? It would be a LOT easier! So, my advice? Don't bother with any burning and dodging YET. Learn to do a simple edge burn, about 20% in from each side, with every print. That will get you used to the proceedure.

So, how to print -- BASIC.

First, take a strip of your paper, and cut it in half. Put one half under something or back in the box, which close. Take the other half out into the light, or turn the light on. Not for long, just enough to be sure that it's completely exposed. Develop these pieces at the same time you will the prints. This will give you a reference for comparison. Our brains don't do well with absolutes (you know, like GOOD and EVIL -- well, black and white). If you don't have these to refer to, your brain will tend to make what you have done LOOK like black, and LOOK like white, but having the patches will help you verify that your brain isn't tricking you.

Next, establish the lightest tone in which you wish to retain detail. I would suggest that for this, you consider (in the image you've shown) the highlights in the hair and the catchlights (little bright spots) in the eyes. With a #2(!!!!) filter, print a test to achieve the correct value. It doesn't have to match your white patch if you don't think it should be pure white. I suspect that the catchlights may be pure white, that the hair won't be. Your print has these values quite a bit too low, if we are looking for a "normal" print. I'll qualify "normal": Which member of your family is normal? But try to do it straight for now. Later you can (and I hope you will) get into interpretation, but let's establish a baseline.

ONLY THEN, when you have achieved the correct value in the lights, do you even look at the blacks (I sometimes take a paper punch and make a hole to look through in the patches, so that the local tones are isolated from context). Compare the black patch with something that you think should be close to a solid black - but most of the time, black areas should have detail in them but they ought to contain a full black somewhere. If your black is not black enough, you need to increase contrast. If the black is so deep that it erases detail that you can see in the negative, you need to lower the contrast. When you have made that determination, change your filter if necessary (probably will be). Test again FOR THE WHITE and, only if it is right, check the black as before. Since you are beginning, you will need, probably, to go back and forth a few times. My students often find that in making their first print, it usually takes several hours. It will get a lot faster when you have a base of experience.

Please get comfortable with this; then you can burn, dodge, split your filtration, build fantastic developers, pre or post flash, etc. and you will have the ability to actually identify what is really happening. Resist the temptation to try to cut corners; one decision at a time is what you need right now. You know, it is like being in a chemistry lab running an experiment - a print is an experiment. Cut all the variables, so you are only working on solving one at a time. One of the chemistry instructors took my class, and as we were going through this process, he asked "In this experiment you just did...?" I loved that.

Drinking wine with the neighbors helps. I process my paper in Beers. Well, that's a developer that a fellow named Dr. Roland F. Beers invented. Not advisable to drink it.

Good luck. Have fun.

Larry Bullis

drpsilver · Dec 14, 2008

13 Dec 2008

Greg:

Greg Heath said:
It is always helpful, for someone else to look...

I heartily agree. I find inspiration in the comments of others.

Greg Heath said:
I tried a 3 and 3.5 filter, but the Dark colors of the ottoman he is leaning on and his one piece pajama, came out too dark with no shadow in the folds. I even tried to dodge his face to get the brilliance, but then I lost the midtones of his face and the small shadow indentations of his fingertips, so I just used the 2.5 filter with no dodging. Maybe I could try it again..this time with slight dodging...

If the ottoman is too dark I might suggest that you reduce the exposure a little. Keep on using the 3.5 or 4.0 filter to hold the highlights, and adjust exposure time to give the shadows that you desire.

The contrast filters that Ilford produces are "speed matched" between 0 and 3.0. This means that you do not need to change the exposure. With that said it is not completely true. They are very close , but not exactly. Therefore if you use the same exposure time you will be close. Once you use filters beyond 3.0 the speed of the paper decreases dramatically. Consult the insert with the paper you have for the effect of contrast on paper speed. Most Ilford Multigrade papers will require 2x exposure for the high contrast filters (in comparison to a 2.0 filter).

Regards,
Darwin

Kvistgaard · Dec 14, 2008

Hi Greg - Lovely photograph, your son's expression and posture is great, the background is nicely out of focus, and very calm and unobtrusive.

On the printing side of things - I think the print is a bit too grey-on-grey. I'd print with a bit more contrast, to add a little punch to the image by taking the lower tones down and the higher ones up a bit. This is just a personal view of course, not scientific fact.

With regards to split grade printing: I can only recommend going for it. I started using this approach a while ago and found it really intuitive to work with, once you get the hang of the notion of adding doses of "white" and "black" tones. AsThomas Bertilsson states above, using dodge & burn with split grade can be a bit of a challenge. But still - great way of learning.

As Larry Bullis writes, keep things simple (to begin with), changing only one variable at the time. Stick to one paper, one developer until ready to move on. My personal view is that the skill of printing is in the craft you apply, not in the choice of material.

Just a quick couple of thoughts - good luck with the printing!

Greg Heath · Dec 15, 2008

Thanks for the advice. Thank you Larry for your detailed analysis. That took a long time to think about and probably a longer time to type. It is much appreciated.

You mention using a #2 filter as a basis. Why?

Why do you suggest I start with a #2?
Is a #2 just what YOU would start with, or is there a scientific reason to start with a number 2 ?
There was no normal light that morning. I pretty much shot the photo with the lens wide open and handholding at 1/100 or so. The Rolliecord is not exactly precise.

It was pretty much a guess. I do have to get better at judging that. I don't have a meter, yet, so I am trying to learn by trial and error. To see what works and what does not..

I learn by doing, and a little by reading. I'm a hands on kind of guy.

I will try your method and see what happens.

I thank you and everyone else for your ideas and suggestions.

Back to the darkroom.

Greg

Lee L · Dec 15, 2008

Greg Heath said:
You mention using a #2 filter as a basis. Why?

A grade 2 paper or a #2 filter on variable contrast paper is considered normal contrast, and should print with a full range of tones using a negative developed normally and exposed to an average contrast subject. The dynamic range of an average subject fits on the normally developed film which matches the average paper grade. If your average negatives fit well on the average paper, then you have room with the outliers to fit them on more or less contrasty grades of paper.

Aim for the middle with your average negatives and you have room to move in both directions for more or less contrasty lighting situations. If your negatives taken in average contrast lighting are consistently printing on #1 or #4 paper, you should take that as a sign that your film development time (or perhaps dilution, or agitation) should be adjusted. So printing with Larry's approach on #2 paper will also reveal useful info about your film developing.

Larry's way is a very efficient method of getting you to the best straight (unmanipulated) print, which is where you want to start.

Lee

Greg Heath · Dec 15, 2008

How

bowzart said:
NOT BAD AT ALL! As Thomas said. A very good effort.

But I gotta say, all the advice is very well intended but it's given by people who already know how. I've taught beginning Futo-gruphy now for about 35 years in Community Colleges, and I've learned a few things over that time about how people learn these skills. In my humble opinion, if you get into split grade printing and other advanced techniques as a rank beginner, it is going to be very hard for you to learn the basics which, if you have them, would make it much easier for you to learn those techniques later on, and not that much later at that. Of course you CAN learn that way, but you will waste a lot of time and blow through a LOT of materials -- you know, $$$.

I don't encourage my students to burn or dodge, even, until they demonstrate that they can handle exposure and contrast. Why? Because if I don't throw out the sea-anchor to keep them from just going for it, very often they try to fix things that ain't broke, and what they end up with is broke things that ain't fixed. I had one student who insisted on burning/dodging everything instead of learning to control contrast with the filters. In one lousy quarter (ten weeks) he went through $750 worth of paper without producing a single convincing print! I told him that our department offered courses in painting and drawing; since that was what he was trying to do, why not just take the appropriate course? It would be a LOT easier! So, my advice? Don't bother with any burning and dodging YET. Learn to do a simple edge burn, about 20% in from each side, with every print. That will get you used to the proceedure.

So, how to print -- BASIC.

First, take a strip of your paper, and cut it in half. Put one half under something or back in the box, which close. Take the other half out into the light, or turn the light on. Not for long, just enough to be sure that it's completely exposed. Develop these pieces at the same time you will the prints. This will give you a reference for comparison. Our brains don't do well with absolutes (you know, like GOOD and EVIL -- well, black and white). If you don't have these to refer to, your brain will tend to make what you have done LOOK like black, and LOOK like white, but having the patches will help you verify that your brain isn't tricking you.

Next, establish the lightest tone in which you wish to retain detail. I would suggest that for this, you consider (in the image you've shown) the highlights in the hair and the catchlights (little bright spots) in the eyes. With a #2(!!!!) filter, print a test to achieve the correct value. It doesn't have to match your white patch if you don't think it should be pure white. I suspect that the catchlights may be pure white, that the hair won't be. Your print has these values quite a bit too low, if we are looking for a "normal" print. I'll qualify "normal": Which member of your family is normal? But try to do it straight for now. Later you can (and I hope you will) get into interpretation, but let's establish a baseline.

ONLY THEN, when you have achieved the correct value in the lights, do you even look at the blacks (I sometimes take a paper punch and make a hole to look through in the patches, so that the local tones are isolated from context). Compare the black patch with something that you think should be close to a solid black - but most of the time, black areas should have detail in them but they ought to contain a full black somewhere. If your black is not black enough, you need to increase contrast. If the black is so deep that it erases detail that you can see in the negative, you need to lower the contrast. When you have made that determination, change your filter if necessary (probably will be). Test again FOR THE WHITE and, only if it is right, check the black as before. Since you are beginning, you will need, probably, to go back and forth a few times. My students often find that in making their first print, it usually takes several hours. It will get a lot faster when you have a base of experience.

Please get comfortable with this; then you can burn, dodge, split your filtration, build fantastic developers, pre or post flash, etc. and you will have the ability to actually identify what is really happening. Resist the temptation to try to cut corners; one decision at a time is what you need right now. You know, it is like being in a chemistry lab running an experiment - a print is an experiment. Cut all the variables, so you are only working on solving one at a time. One of the chemistry instructors took my class, and as we were going through this process, he asked "In this experiment you just did...?" I loved that.

Drinking wine with the neighbors helps. I process my paper in Beers. Well, that's a developer that a fellow named Dr. Roland F. Beers invented. Not advisable to drink it.

Good luck. Have fun.

Larry Bullis

Larry,

I have read your post over and over.

Here is a basic question because I don't know.

How can I expose the print for the whites and the blacks at the same time?

Being that this is really one of my first prints ever...ok maybe my 4th print with an enlarger. I think you are telling me to expose with a #2 to get a baseline print. Then increase the filter and expose the print over his face and hair only, and block the rest of the paper from the enlarger light...then develop the print. Once I get "that" to where I want it to resemble the white paper (reference sheet), then go back with another paper sheet and do it again for the black areas, like his pajama's. Once I have the blacks represented correctly with as dark as I can make it without losing the details in the blackness. Then go back and do it all again but this time apply those times and filters to each part of the print and then develop for the result.

I in my beginner knowledge and practice I was exposing the print with a higher filter number to get the blacks dark enough by way of exposure and bringing the "whites" to a lighter shade by dodging the light to gain a lighter face without losing the details of his skin...

So by my explanation, and your credentials I am proceeding in an inaccurate way to produce a print. Would this be correct ?

Thanks for your input.

Greg

Larry Bullis · Dec 15, 2008

Greg,

The reason for #2 is simply that #2 is SUPPOSED to be "normal" but as I say, "which member of your family..."

I think it is great to start with #2 because it is RIGHT in the Middle between 00 and 5, so it will give you a great idea about whether you are shy or excessive on the contrast. It is best to choose a starting point and stick with it. If you don't, how can you evaluate what you have?

Here's another control you may find useful: We use proof sheets for 2 reasons. First, we usually want to know what we have in the way of images. Most people settle for that, and they make the proof sheet to show the image so they can see it. Unfortunately, they often end up trying to print negatives that don't deserve the effort, because they usually don't consider the second reason. That is to tell us how our negatives measure up. Again, I'm going to suggest starting with a #2. Print your roll so that the edge of the film in the center of the sheet merges with the black, but in the corner of the sheet the edge should be just barely visible. I'm assuming here that you will be making your proofs at say, f/8 where "cutoff" is no longer a factor. The principle here is that the center of the field is closest to the lens; the corner the farthest from. The difference in the distances equals lost light. By printing to this precise set of parameters, you can be sure that you are printing to full black, but not overprinting. This gives you the best platform for seeing what is in your negatives. Does something in the negative equal full black, or do you start with a gray? If you start with a gray as the darkest tone, you are overexposing in the camera. If you don't see detail in the blacks, if it goes deep black, you are underexposing. Do you have anything approaching white. or are your whites blown out? In the first case, not having anything at or near white consistently throughout when your negatives pass the exposure test, will indicate that your development time is too short (too little contrast). Second case, whites blown out look like paper - that indicates that you have too much contrast, which results from either a very wide subject brightness range or overdevelopment.

Get it? We are establishing Controls, so we can intelligently evaluate what we have.

Your proof sheets may not look great. If that is true, your negatives aren't great, and you can easily figure out why. I make my students proof this way. It's funny. They come out of the darkroom with a test strip, and ask me whether I can see the holes. The test across the center to corner, not even considering what's ON the film, only the edges. Then, they instantly know whether they have negatives worth printing! It is amazing.

These students, in ten weeks, aren't all printing like St. Ansel. But there is usually one or two who are entering the hallowed realm, and they understand what AA was doing. When they keep at it they quickly become very impressive. It is this little bit of discipline that makes it work.

You have spent a lot on your darkroom. You better buy a light meter. Because our eyes adapt to the light level, it is pretty much impossible to use your eyes as meters. Our brains are squirrely organs. They deceive us all the time. You see through your eyes, not with them - to paraphrase William Blake.

No, it takes no time to think about it, just typing - that's it. This stuff is automatic pilot. I've been doing this for so long - I live and breath this stuff, and I'm really just a machine that presents it and won't let students get away with anything. If I'm going to be on this thing, when I see a need, if I don't answer it if I can, why am I here? I might as well be out shooting or at the very least, frying some trout. You aren't in my class but I'm here to help. I don't make enough teaching to keep me from giving it away. It is great when somebody can use it. That's all I care about.

Go do it.

L

Larry Bullis · Dec 15, 2008

Greg Heath said:
Here is a basic question because I don't know.

How can I expose the print for the whites and the blacks at the same time?

You don't expose for both. You only expose for the white. You then choose your contrast grade for the blacks. The old timers adage was "expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights". They are talking about film in the camera. The same thing applies to the print. In the print, the highlights are the shadows of the negative; they correspond to the darkest parts of the negative. The shadows in the negative are read by the print to be the highlights. If you don't get this, I'll try to explain it again. Let me know. Development of the film produces contrast. More development, more contrast. Less development, less contrast. With all but a very few papers, we use "contrast grades" or the filters, instead of development to different lenths of time to give us control of contrast. So we expose ONLY for the whites, and choose our contrast grades to give us the blacks we need.

I see that you are thinking that you need to change filters in mid print. Please allow this to be simple. It is. Fancy techniques are great for those who understand them, but if you are going to be making your 5th print, your going to mess up your mind with that stuff. Just use ONE FILTER for each print. And for now, I really hope you will just make the print. Burning, dodging, etc. is NOT going to help you. You need the basics, bare basics. The rest of it? Later. It will be clear what you need then.

Greg Heath said:
I think you are telling me to expose with a #2 to get a baseline print. Then increase the filter and expose the print over his face and hair only, and block the rest of the paper from the enlarger light...then develop the print.

No. Don't change filters. ONE PRINT, ONE FILTER, NO "blocking" (dodging) or anything. ONE EXPOSURE. JUST THAT. NO MORE.

Greg Heath said:
Once I get "that" to where I want it to resemble the white paper (reference sheet), then go back with another paper sheet and do it again for the black areas, like his pajama's.

No. You should be using test strips, for an 8x10 I'd suggest about a 1 or 1-1/2 by 8 inch strip, lain across a representative cross section of values. In the example you provide, be sure it includes the hair, the eyes, the pajamas. The books often say to give incremental exposures - e.g. 5, 10, 15, 20. I would advise against this. Just start at say f/8 at 20 seconds in a single exposure. It will be either too light, too dark, or just right. Go on from there. If too light, then give it more. Too dark, less. Work the stuff out on the test strips, then you can make a work print of the whole image.

Greg Heath said:
Once I have the blacks represented correctly with as dark as I can make it without losing the details in the blackness.

YES.

Then go back and do it all again but this time apply those times and filters to each part of the print and then develop for the result.

NO. One print. One time. One filter. One exposure.

Greg Heath said:
I in my beginner knowledge and practice I was exposing the print with a higher filter number to get the blacks dark enough by way of exposure and bringing the "whites" to a lighter shade by dodging the light to gain a lighter face without losing the details of his skin...

And in doing so, you will get a painting, not a print. For now, treat the whole print the same way. Just one exposure. It is FAR easier than you think!

Greg Heath said:
Would this be correct ?

You get to go back over it and reconstruct. Keep us posted.

Thanks for your input.

You are welcome. I live for this.

Larry

BradS · Dec 15, 2008

hey Larry, You helped me too...a bunch!

Thanks. I need this same lecture.

Do you recommend a book for "self taught" students - those of us who are not be able to attend classes at the local university / college?

Have Mr. Adams' series...but they're kinda much to digest when you're still learning. Also have George Craven, "Object and Image"...which is pretty good but, passes all too briefly over the nitty gritty of how to make a decent print.

London and Upton too...

Greg Heath · Dec 15, 2008

Thanks Lee. A great explanation. I will do that.

Greg

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