Does every print require tons of time/treatment/trash?

bvy · May 31, 2018

Here's a print I made last night of a friend's son. I plan to give it to his parents when I see them this weekend. It printed easily: I didn't find any areas I felt like needed dodging and burning, and I was able to find the right exposure with just two 4x5 pieces of paper. The whole thing took me about 15 minutes. It's not going to win me any awards, but I'm pretty satisfied with it, and I'm happy to share it.

This isn't the norm for me. There are prints I've spent hours and reams of paper on, dodging this and burning that. But for most things, I'm somewhere in the middle: four or five test sheets of paper of varying size, and dodging/burning that I can do with generic tools I have on hand -- black paper with different size holes, elliptical dodging tool, or even my hand.

Still, sometimes I wonder if I'm missing an opportunity to turn every ordinary print into something extraordinary.

Technical details: Ilford XP2 at 200, Yashica Mat 124G; Ilford MGIV RC 8x10 paper (pearl). Split grade print: 200M+0Y (32s) + 0M+200Y (10s).

darkosaric · May 31, 2018

When exposure is right, no big contrast (like portraits in the shade, as your example), and when the film is developed correctly - then I need also only 10-15 minutes for a print. But weak developed negative, underexposed and thin, contrast scene ... nightmare for printing.

piffey · May 31, 2018

I don't remember who said it, but I have it front page of my darkroom journal: "If you want to be a better printer, buy a bigger trash can."

I've found it easier to read negatives the more I print and get it satisfactory within a few test strips -- one for exposure, one for MG filter, sometimes one for split grade. Still if I'm making something to hang, then yeah, it's going to be a LOT of money in paper before I'm satisfied except for on a few, rare, prints perfect every time negatives.

Bill Burk · May 31, 2018

Try it again with a half grade more contrast and set them side by side. See which you reach for as the better.

If the original is still your favorite, or if you can't tell them apart... then you've confirmed that you had it right in the first place.

I think I've seen some of my prints that I was perfectly happy with, look a little better with more contrast.

darkroommike · May 31, 2018

The good negatives don't require as much suffering and the end purpose of the print should define the amount of effort. If it looks good and fulfills it's purpose then move on to the next job.

darkroommike · May 31, 2018

piffey said:
I don't remember who said it, but I have it front page of my darkroom journal: "If you want to be a better printer, buy a bigger trash can."

....

I say this to my students all the time but I'm pretty sure someone else said it first--LOL. Maybe John Sexton?

jonasfj · May 31, 2018

It is an ok portrait. The light on his face is a little bit flat and he appears to be squinting as if he has not gotten used to the light. I think those are difficult to fix while printing.

Vaughn · May 31, 2018

Sometimes the image is more important or carries more weight than the print...such as informal portraits, and snapshots in general.

MattKing · May 31, 2018

Any print can be changed with more or different work. And sometimes you can achieve what appear to be two almost completely different prints from the same negative. So there really no single answer to your question.
My darkroom group did an experiment a few years ago where some of us shot some duplicate negatives, and then distributed the negatives among several of the members. Each printed the negative to their own interpretation. Some were very similar, while others differed considerably.
We have done something similar here (when it was APUG) in the past, although we were only able to share scans of the results.
Here is the link to the applicable gallery: https://www.photrio.com/forum/media/categories/lets-all-print-one-negative.15/
My rule of thumb for the Postcard Exchange is: print something that looks good with a straightforward print - you don't want to have to do a complex series of dodging and burning if you are printing 25+ copies, each on 4"x6"!

Sirius Glass · May 31, 2018

If you got a good print in 15 minutes, you must have done something wrong. Tear up the print and start all over.

No, really sometimes things work out easily. Several times I have written programs that compiled and ran correctly the first time, but not often.

faberryman · May 31, 2018

Some do, some don't. A lot depends on the negative. Take time with your negatives.

Bob Carnie · May 31, 2018

I think that we are now coming into a different era that may indeed appreciate the print more... Recent shows - Red Light at Lonsdale Gallery Toronto showing over 350 alternative one of a kind prints.. has made me think now is the time to make great prints.

We have been swamped with poor to excellent Ink Jet prints over the last 18 years, and of course social media has millions of images to be viewed, that making wet prints whether silver gelatin enlarger prints or hand made gum over Pt Pd prints are now where its at. IMO.
This year alone I have worked on more wet prints than any time over the last 8 years... I think the photographic community and beyond is asking for good quality prints... the popularity of Wet Plate is nothing short of phenomenal.

So to the OP I would say , always make the best print you can (whether digital print or wet print) then move on, the simple fact that you have gone to the effort of learning how to print demands this.

paul ron · May 31, 2018

since you have it scaned, try fiddeling with the lighting in photoshop to see if you may like more contrast or dodge n burn fixes?

bvy · May 31, 2018

jonasfj said:
It is an ok portrait. The light on his face is a little bit flat and he appears to be squinting as if he has not gotten used to the light. I think those are difficult to fix while printing.

Certainly squinting is. And yes, his hair is unkempt, he has cat hair all over him, and the T-shirt is overbearing. So "portrait" might be an ambitious term. But it was taken as is and in the moment. I think they'll like it for that reason.

Looking at it again, some low grade dodging of the face and arms might help the subject pop a bit. But this is based on my looking at the scan of the print, and I try not to make printing decision based on what I see on the screen.

Kino · May 31, 2018

It's taken my 20 years of printing and feedback to become comfortable judging exposure by eye for timing/grading motion picture film and I'm STILL not real comfortable when I print still film.

Maybe just before I die, I'll get it...

slackercrurster · May 31, 2018

Every file / neg is not the same. Some take hours to get a print others are easier.

Vaughn · May 31, 2018

And even 'perfect' negatives can take considerable time and effort to draw out the print one wants...I considered that time and effort to be the fun part of the silver-gelatin process, along with being there and exposing the film.

BVY -- The skin tones will be important, of course, and being light in tone, they'll will be quite different on a print than what one sees on the screen. I like the way they are on my screen...light enough to pop him to the fore-front of the scene.

Ko.Fe. · May 31, 2018

If I have consistent negatives it is 30 sec exposure, minute-two developer, 10 sec stop, one minute fix and one-two minutes wash.
It is under five minutes and with RC. In total total.
With old FB single grade papers I use lith or close to it developer, without lith reaction it is up to ten minutes in developer and longer to wash.
I usually do ten or so prints and about five paper sheets are wasted.
Some of them are at home walls, another people homes walls and collections.
The key is to be consistent and frequent and understand what you are doing.

In Burlington Camera they still have people who worked shifts to print hundreds of bw prints under enlarger. And those were good prints.

I don't think they did it on big paper, nor do I. 8x10 and Letter size.
Then I do on bigger the output is 1:1 or 1:3. One one hands and from one to three are in the trash bin.

fjpod · May 31, 2018

When you have a lower quality negative, usually when too thin, try split grade printing. It ha1d cut down my dodging and burning tremendously. You can increase the contrast in your print to look snappier and then fill in the highlights. It takes a little more time but it can end theSony of settling for low contrast mush in order to get some highlights filled in. Go to you tube and search split grade printing.

Saganich · May 31, 2018

and don't forget dry down. The biggest change I made that contributed to better prints on the wall was a microwave (for fiber!) to dry prints or strips and compensate for the evil dry down....by far the largest contributor to the trash can.

Paul Howell · May 31, 2018

If you haven't already read up on and tired the Zone System or Beyond the Zone System you might consider the investment in time. The zone system does not yield a perfect negative, you will still have to burn and dodge, but without as much fuss and bother. In this case if you metered the shadows for zone III and developed for skin tones in Zone VI it would printed easily.

I am by no means a zone fanatic, but using the basic principles as a guide you can get a very workable negative. If you shoot roll film you can find a copy of Carson Graves Zone System for 35mm Photographers, a good starting place. Once you tested your film and developer combo and learn visualize a scene you will get better results and less waste attempting to salvage improperly exposed negatives.

M Carter · May 31, 2018

It starts with the neg - dodging and burning should be creative/composition tools, not rescue missions.

I test my film and developer combos, and look for exposure and developing that lets me make an acceptable print with no filters (grade 2.5 on Seagull fiber is the same as no filters in my tests). I find the max black printing time by strip-testing the leader, and if I don't get the tonal range from the neg I want at that max-black printing time with no filters, I go back and figure out why. I'll expose more, develop more or less, whatever it takes. And I keep all those notes and test prints in a binder, which gives me sort of a "story" of how that film/dev combo performs and the steps I took to dial it in.

One of many possible workflows, but works great for me. And, oddly enough, when I then go shoot "for real", I make lith prints, with their own oddball contrast control - but a good range of neg tones is still the best start for me.

slackercrurster · May 31, 2018

This took about 20+ work prints. Terrible light, shot wide open at 1.4

John51 · Jun 2, 2018

Kino said:
It's taken my 20 years of printing and feedback to become comfortable judging exposure by eye for timing/grading motion picture film and I'm STILL not real comfortable when I print still film.

Maybe just before I die, I'll get it...

I used to be able to print by eye, not even an enlarger timer but I was banging out close to a hundred postcards in a couple of hours. Amazing how good we can get when really pushed for time.

Tried wet printing again 40 years later, had all the time in the world and my results were absolute crap. Uh oh, I'm not young and special any more.

klownshed · Jun 2, 2018

A ‘good negative’ doesn’t always make for a good or interesting photo. The genre plays a big part too. I generally spend way more time on a landscape than on a portrait. But that’s because with landscapes the negative is usually jiust a starting point and the final print will not be and is not intended to be a facsimile of a ‘perfectly exposed’ negative. But that’s exactly why I like black and white photography. The tones are malleable and the creative process of trying to get something interesting (to me at least) is the fun part.

I’ve printed family photos that take much less work and are ultimately special because of the subject matter, not because of the process.

Some negatives are easy to print and don’t take much work. Others take a lot of work to get where I want them to be and that process is something I very much enjoy. In those cases it has nothing to do with the negative being good or bad.

The important thing is to enjoy what you’re doing. If you are satisfied with the end result and enjoyed the process what more can you ask for?

Does every print require tons of time/treatment/trash?

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