filter for BW printing

joe7

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Nov 1, 2009
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one of my friend want to sell his enlarger with Ilford Cibachrome-A filter set.can i use this filter set for BW printing,because from my understanding,we need to use the ilford multigrade filter for printing,but for this one i don't know.will the result be the same if i use this one?

Thanks in advance for any of your help


 

hpulley

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You probably can since you can use any color head and just dial in the magenta and yellow for multigrade printing. In general the yellow is for the low contrast emulsion while the magenta is for high contrast so the deeper the magenta the higher the contrast. You won't use cyan for B&W printing. I couldn't find a conversion chart from a quick look but generally the darkest magenta will give you around multigrade 5.
 

fschifano

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Well, you could, but I don't recommend it. The yellow and magenta filters in the set will work to affect the contrast of the print, but this filter set is designed specifically for color printing. Using them will not be as convenient as a multigrade filter set, and you may not be able to fully exploit the paper's contrast range. The cyan filters are useless for variable contrast papers.
 

ann

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The filters for printing can be purchase very cheaply , using color filters is going to be costly in the end.
 

hpulley

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But people use color heads for multigrade right? I just got a color head, I used to use proper multigrade filters but I've started dialing the magenta and yellow in using the color head instead, as recommended by the MultiGrade fact sheet and it seems to work well.
 

RalphLambrecht

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We don't know if this enlarger has a color head yet.

Color heads work well for B&W printing, but under-the-lens filters work well too. In fact, they are easier for split-grade printing or using several grades within one print, because it quicker to switch filters than to dial-in another grade all the time. Color heads have the advantage that their contrast can be changed in much finer increments.
 
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