Does anyone else here use a 'reference print' in the darkroom?

eli griggs · Apr 8, 2020

I just wondered if any other photographer here uses a b&w reference print in the darkroom, to keep their own prints on track with good contrast, grey tones and other small factors which make for a quality print, on whatever paper you are using?

I believe there was, one time on APUG, at least one photographer selling his own prints as reference tools, but I do no ever recall seeing a conversation, that address what and how such tools are invaluable in the wet darkroom.

If you use such prints, do you use your own work, or the original print(s) of another photographer?

Do you use a colour print as well.

Please share and give your own take as to the value of such prints, especially to novice printmakers.

Be Safe and Godspeed.

Andrew O'Neill · Apr 8, 2020

Nope.

MattKing · Apr 9, 2020

I have in the past, and recommend that new printers do until they gain confidence.

payral · Apr 9, 2020

eli griggs said:
I believe there was, one time on APUG, at least one photographer selling his own prints as reference tools, but I do no ever recall seeing a conversation, that address what and how such tools are invaluable in the wet darkroom.
.

Fred Picker owner of Zone VI Studio was selling reference prints. I have few of them.

Tom Kershaw · Apr 9, 2020

R.Gould · Apr 9, 2020

pentaxuser · Apr 9, 2020

Nice enough prints from Fred. When was this and what would $25 be in today's money? I liked the endorsement from J.L. Buckingham of Charlottesville N.C. In its phraseology it reminds me of the Charles Atlas adverts I used to read on the back of comics in the 1950s

pentaxuser

ic-racer · Apr 9, 2020

Reference prints are probably more important now than ever. I suspect there are people out there (not here) that have never seen a photographic print. Their only exposure to photography is through a computer monitor.

StepheKoontz · Apr 9, 2020

It's especially important IMHO for color printing. Our brains have a strong "auto white balance" and without a reference point, I find it's easy to misread a color print. I use one for B&W printing as wel,l as it helps me print to a gray scale that displays well. I don't agree we need to purchase one, but it's handy to keep a "good print" at hand while I'm working.

AndyH · Apr 9, 2020

When I wet printed, I always had one or two contrasty, well-exposed prints on the wall near the developer tray. Nothing fancy, just my own work that I thought contained a good range of light values and were well exposed and printed. I found it helped visualize the tonal range as I was watching the image emerge under the safelight.

Andy

jim10219 · Apr 9, 2020

Nope. I'm more interested in trying to convey an emotional message through the print rather than technical perfection. That means incorporating a reference print into my workflow would unnecessarily slow me down and increase my expenses. More often than not, a technically perfect print won't have the right mood.

Renato Tonelli · Apr 9, 2020

I have reference prints for both B&W and Ilfochrome. The Ilfochrome were absolutely necessary, in my humble opinion: color balance and density could be easily and economically checked from paper batch to paper batch and a check on chemistry.
The B&W ones are very useful, especially when you are using more than one paper: keeps you printing on target and shows you where a print may have fallen short on contrast, exposure, D-max and so on.

It takes time to make reference print, especially when you use several papers; changes in paper manufacturing? New reference print!
Yikes!

markbau · Apr 9, 2020

I don't think I have a reference print as such but I do have an amazingly good (original) print of Minor White by David Vestal in my darkroom that I look at often. I think it's more about looking at lots of high-quality original prints to know what the medium is capable of. The better printer you become the more discerning you become when you look at prints. At first, it's just knowing that solid white and solid black are visual poverty (to use Vestal's words) but as you get more experience and your eye gets better you start appreciating the nuances in a great print. The day comes when a print that you think is just ok would have been viewed as your masterpiece not long ago, as you get better you get more discerning. My mantra is never satisfied with your work, it can always be better. The trick is figuring out how to make them better, never be satisfied. Be painfully honest when looking at your prints. 99% of my prints are crap, the other 1% could be printed better.

Vaughn · Apr 9, 2020

No...each print is a new experience. The tonal qualities of the reference print may not have the tonal relationships that best fits the new image. Might be helpful if printing a collection of images one wants to match in tonality.

But looking at prints (other than ones own) is important in developing ones visual literacy.

Alan9940 · Apr 9, 2020

Like payral, when I first started printing B&W (40 years ago now), I had a couple of Fred Picker's reference prints in the darkroom with me. IIRC, I had a bit of a hard time getting my high values to look "creamy" and "alive" the way Fred's looked in those prints. Contrast was easy...simply change paper grades and/or split development between Selectol-Soft and Dektol for in-between grades. I finally learned about things like dry-down and how the intensity of my cold-light could change over time, and how all that affected the high values. Over time, I got those things nailed down to the point where I could be totally consistent. IMO, it's nice to have something available that reveals what a fine B&W print can look like. YMMV, of course.

Vaughn · Apr 9, 2020

This is one advantage of learning in a school environment -- one gets to see a lot of prints being worked on and how the changes affect the images. Lots of great, good, fair and lousy prints to learn from!

Bob Carnie · Apr 9, 2020

I remember the Fred Picker reference print... I bought one ... waited in anguish until it could arrive so I would have the reference I needed to improve my work... Turned out it was one of the worst prints I have ever seen.... so the answer is No..

Unless you are doing edition prints and need a wet reference to match too.

chriscrawfordphoto · Apr 9, 2020

Vaughn said:
This is one advantage of learning in a school environment -- one gets to see a lot of prints being worked on and how the changes affect the images. Lots of great, good, fair and lousy prints to learn from!

Agreed (I went to Indiana University to study Photography as part of a Fine arts degree). Another thing is going to museums and seeing great works.

MattKing · Apr 9, 2020

I actually purchased a reference print advertised by a very experienced APUG member here in 2006 - anyone else remember Donald Miller?
I was trying to ramp up my darkroom work again, after being mostly out of the darkroom for too long.
It is a good, rather old fashioned print, and I have it framed now and on a wall.
The purchase coincided (roughly) with my taking a night school beginning darkroom class that I took because it gave me access to a good darkroom, even though a "beginners" class wasn't exactly matched to my experience.
One of the things I took away from that class, which was offered in a high school that was both well equipped and clearly heavily used to teach photography, was that having examples of good printing available is a really good idea. There was a lot of (presumably student) work tacked to the walls, and a really large percentage of it was very poorly printed!
If I was running a class like that, I'd make a point of having lots of good prints on the wall!
One thing that has become clear to me as a result of the last 15 years of mixing real world and internet photography is that there are a lot of people out there who are trying this stuff out but don't have real life references to refer to - just internet ones. For those people, a reference print plus an experienced person to talk to could be really useful.
In the end, Donald Miller's print served more to reinforce my confidence in my own experience than to provide an in darkroom reference, but I'm still glad I purchased it.
He sold it to me and the other APUG members who took him up on his offer for a price distinctly less than the prices he was selling prints for on his website. When I imported it into Canada, I had to convince the Customs officials to process the importation at the value I paid, rather than the prices he was normally charging. Back in 2006, we were having to pay duty and taxes on a lot more imports than we have to pay now.

DREW WILEY · Apr 9, 2020

Every single image is a different problem, and there's not necessarily a single solution. I like to print a few variations, because each in its own way might be "right", once the preliminary test strip or trial print is worked out. And I sure as heck don't want someone else's idea of how to do it in mind. I've seen lots and lots of great prints over the years by famous masters. It was a good influence. But there comes a time - and it happened a long time ago for me, right at the start - that the little bird just has to jump off the limb and learn to fly. Fred Picker already got enough of my money for Zone VI darkroom gadgets and Brilliant Bromide paper. Good paper, but the purpose in buying it sure as heck wasn't to imitate Picker himself, or anyone else for that matter! Picker was pretty much just adapting AA's practice of using assistants to mass-produce small prints of popular images for a low price. A box of ten mounted 8x10 AA prints went for $40 at Best Studio in Yosemite Valley in the 1950's. These prints might be worth a few hundred dollars apiece now; but being made by competent assistants rather than personally by him, weren't officially signed, and don't fetch the very high prices of work directly from his own hand even if the visual quality is equal. The same images are still available either darkroom style printed for a few hundred dollars apiece, or photomechanically mass-reproduced. You see them everywhere. Picker himself had the sales style of an old-fashioned medicine wagon or snake oil huckster. Don't know why. A number of products of his were quite worthy in their own right. I once got a free book of his images with an order; it didn't impress me.

btaylor · Apr 9, 2020

No B&W reference print for me, but it’s not a bad idea- maybe I’ll tack one up.

For color it’s an absolute must for me, color charts, gray cards in a typical outdoor scene (where I usually photograph). Too easy for my brain to drift the colors.

David A. Goldfarb · Apr 9, 2020

I used to do that. Sometimes I’d take a print that I was really happy with and hang it up in the darkroom for reference under safelight, to have a sense of about where my whites and contrast should be, bearing in mind that the reference print would be a dry print, and the wet print should be a little brighter to match the drydown of the reference print. It’s not a bad idea.

Vaughn · Apr 9, 2020

btaylor said:
No B&W reference print for me, but it’s not a bad idea- maybe I’ll tack one up.

For color it’s an absolute must for me, color charts, gray cards in a typical outdoor scene (where I usually photograph). Too easy for my brain to drift the colors.

I would not look at the wet print coming out of the RA4 machine (no wash/dry unit attached) until I have a chance to wash it and dry it. The color shift between wet and dry is significant, and I did not want a first impression of a too blue print. I had standard viewing lights to judge the print once dried (w/ hair drier). I had my first good look at the print once I had it under those lights. My color experience is not extensive at all.

The same is true with B&W for me. I do not want to be looking at the print when I turn on the white light. My first impression with dilated pupils and a sudden bright light is always that the print is too light...a cause of a small amount of 'dry-down' for a lot of beginners, in my opinion.

I'd watch students walk out of the darkroom with their test strip or print in their hands. As soon as they step into the light (not even leaving the doorway) they judge their test strip and head back into the darkroom. Their pupils hardly had a chance to close down. They'd pick a time off the test strip based on that first impression, and wonder why the resulting print seemed darker than it should once they are out in the light again. They'd have to go in and reduce the exposure a little.

eli griggs · Apr 9, 2020

Here is an example of the print I use, though it is a little light and has flare in the lower Left corner. I looked for the actual Fiber Print I use, but could no find where I put it, so this small print will have to serve.

This print is Selenium toned, was shot on Tri-x Pan ISO 200 (D76) back in the mid 1980s, with a 80mm 2.8 on a Hasselblad CM, using a Luna Pro F for metering.

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rgeorge911 · Apr 9, 2020

I don’t use reference prints in my B&W darkroom, but it’s a good idea, I think. I do use examples of pure white and pure black on processed sheets of the same paper I’m printing on and compare them to my prints as I make them. I still have the problem of thinking I nailed a print (looking after drying in the darkroom) and then seeing it as just overall too dark when I hang it on a wall in my office. A print viewing lamp in my darkroom has helped, but it still happens to me.

Does anyone else here use a 'reference print' in the darkroom?

eli griggs

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Does anyone else here use a 'reference print' in the darkroom?

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