General Darkroom Tips/Tricks Thread

craigclu · Mar 26, 2005

I didn't quickly find any specific area that this seemed to be a primary thread topic so I thought I'd start one. There are so many little tips that one would accumulate when working directly with others in darkroom activities and this seems to be a great, modern place to pass on those small tidbits that might enhance their darkroom experiences. Some very basic ideas that one person might take for granted as common knowledge might not have been so obvious or discovered on one's own....

Here's one to start:

When measuring dry chemicals, place the supply container, cover off, onto your scale (assuming digital), then tare. The scale will measure negative values as you remove material. This allows you to tap off your spoon on the receiving vessel and better account for clinging material and also helps to avoid mistakes of over-adding that can occur when trickling directly to the receiving vessel or spoon from the supply. It seems so obvious but when I was first shown this, it created one of those forehead flattening moments for me!

Related... I also reload for firearms target shooting. The inexpensive grain scales used for this easily handle very small quantity measuring. I keep my formulas on spreadsheets, with a side column showing the grain equivalent to grams. One gram = 15.4324 grains so if you need 0.2 grams, my recipe also shows the easily measured grain equivalent of 3.1 grains.

Christopher Colley · Mar 26, 2005

If you don't know what side the emulsion is on with fiber matte paper lick a corner of it! the slippery side is the emulsion.

(took me a few tries when I first used matte fiber to find out where the emulsion was)

BWGirl · Mar 26, 2005

If you must put your trays on a flat counter, fold a beach towel in thirds the long way and place it under the trays. Makes it easy to rock the trays!

(Good idea, this thread!)

MurrayMinchin · Mar 26, 2005

Oxygen and light are the enemy of developers and wine bags are the solution...you know...the wine that comes in a mylar bag in a cardboard box with a brown removable spigot? Lay the box on its back, pour the developer in, put the spigot back on, open the pour spout, and push out all the air. Developer lasts forever and the hangover depends on the quality of wine.

Murray

Ed Sukach · Mar 26, 2005

craigclu said:
Related... I also reload for firearms target shooting. The inexpensive grain scales used for this easily handle very small quantity measuring. I keep my formulas on spreadsheets, with a side column showing the grain equivalent to grams. One gram = 15.4324 grains so if you need 0.2 grams, my recipe also shows the easily measured grain equivalent of 3.1 grains.

Interesting... I also reload.

I've been contemplating the purchase of one of the RCBS (or...?) digital scales, for both reloading and chemistry. Something like a 1500 gram capacity to .01 gram resolution (~ 0.1 grain?) and Metric/ English switchability.

Any word on whether they are worth it?

Flotsam · Mar 26, 2005

Here's a simple but useful gimmick that I came up with years ago when I was printing 10 hours a day in a custom lab. I'm still using the first one that I made.

By bending the wand so that the handle is about four inches higher than the dodging shape, not only does it throw a more out of focus shadow but the shadow of the handle moves around much more radically than the shape while dodging. No more prints ruined by wand shadow, ever.

arigram · Mar 27, 2005

Enlarger wall bracket

I noticed that my enlarger shakes a bit, so I decided to buy the wall mount for it. It was expensive and it could take a month or two to be delivered but I couldn't wait that long. So I made a bracket myself to atleast hold the top of the column steadilly. The bracket of my enlarger has a plastic top with a "pocket" at the back, probably for the company's bracket. You can adapt it for your own. The only probably with it is that it limits a bit the height that the head can go up, so I might need to adjust a couple things.

As you can see, its just two L brackets and a couple extra things that you can easily find in your local hardware store. If I can find the stuff in Crete, you can!

Bob Carnie · Mar 27, 2005

Good thread

Here is my 2cents

When setting up to print I follow this method to have sharp corners when printing , assuming the enlarger is aligned

take neg stage out and lift arm of head and project light at the magnification you are going to work at.
place easel under light and center the blades so that all four edges are within the circle of light projected.
place negative in glass carrier ,centered as much as you can and put in enlarger.
Observe where the negative lands on the easel, If it is not dead nuts in the center , take out the carrier and move the NEG and try again untill it is centered.
Take the negative stage out again and black masking tape the back end of the glass carrier to cut out the raw light .
Put back into the enlarger, Your Bulb, negative stage, lens stage and easel are now in a row.

If you are using non glass carriers and you find that you cannot do this , Well that is the reason I use glass carriers.

Max Power · Mar 27, 2005

Sort of a darkroom trick

So, last Christmas I renovated my upstairs bathroom...I ripped out everything including a shower in the corner.

The shower had one of those Delta 'scald control' water mixing units which gives maintains a very constant temperature once all warmed up. Instead of pitching it into the recycling bin, I took the unit and installed it in my darkroom. It maintains a very constant temperature and didn't cost me a fortune as would a 'real' darkroom water panel.

Everyone knows someone who is doing a bathroom renovation; keep your eyes and ears open for a unit like this and it will be well worth the investment.

Kent

dschneller · Mar 28, 2005

4x5 Daylight Developing Tubes

I created some 4x5 sheet developing tubes with a twist. By putting a ball value between the tubes, they are now light tight between chemical changes.

Dave

photobackpacker · Mar 28, 2005

Flotsam said:
Here's a simple but useful gimmick that I came up with years ago when I was printing 10 hours a day in a custom lab. I'm still using the first one that I made.

By bending the wand so that the handle is about four inches higher than the dodging shape, not only does it throw a more out of focus shadow but the shadow of the handle moves around much more radically than the shape while dodging. No more prints ruined by wand shadow, ever.

Holy Pnumbra, Floatsam! A fuzzy twist!! I like it.

photobackpacker · Mar 28, 2005

Ed Sukach said:
Interesting... I also reload.

I've been contemplating the purchase of one of the RCBS (or...?) digital scales, for both reloading and chemistry. Something like a 1500 gram capacity to .01 gram resolution (~ 0.1 grain?) and Metric/ English switchability.

Any word on whether they are worth it?

I, too am a shooter and reload around 20,000 shotgun shells per year. The powder scales are pretty limited - you are limited by the upper limit of the weight these scales will handle.

There are some excellent Chinese import scales on ebay that are really great. I bought one of these and am pleased with it.

craigclu · Mar 30, 2005

A simple habit I've gotten into after seeing someone else do it.... I snip the sharp corners of the negatives I cut (any amount will do). This makes them slide easily into the sleeves without catching on the way in.

argentic · Mar 30, 2005

craigclu said:
A simple habit I've gotten into after seeing someone else do it.... I snip the sharp corners of the negatives I cut (any amount will do). This makes them slide easily into the sleeves without catching on the way in.

To easily snip the corners in the dark I use a big size nailclipper. Works like a charm with 4x5, 120 and 35 mm alike.

I mounted my RH Zonemaster and Stopclock Pro on an inclined bookshelf, at eyes height above the workdesk, between two enlargers. Much easier to look at, and my desktop is less cluttered.

Blighty · Mar 30, 2005

It can be tricky loading 120 film onto a paterson spiral. I take a piece of discarded 120 film (about 4~5 inches in length) and locate it in the groove below the take up point on the spiral. This stops the film buckling downwards into the spiral whilst it's being fed in. Once the film has 'caught', one simply pulls the 'discard' out of the spiral. BLIGHTY.

craigclu · Apr 16, 2005

I was out of my normal liquid concentrate fixer this AM and went rummaging for base chemicals or something to bale me out. I found an old Kodak 1 gallon bag of hardening fixer. This reminded me of a method a friend showed me for easily mixing this quantity of powdered chemical. I used a 1 gallon glass thumb hole jug (like apple cider, etc comes in). I placed the right temp water and entire pack of chemical in and simply roll the bottle back and forth. There is very little aeration and you can easily see when it goes into suspension. The bottle is easy to decant from or in this case, I'll use it up fast enough that I'll likely just use it from the mixing jug.

Flotsam · Apr 16, 2005

I was looking for a way to suspend wet prints over the trays or the water bath while the excess solution drained back into the trays without having to stand there holding it.

Solution:
A couple of days ago I took a cheap (under $10 ) clamp-to-the-edge-of-a-desk swing arm desk lamp that I had lying around, sacrificed the lamp part and then stuck a bolt suitable for hanging a clip though it. I use a pair of plastic locking tongs so that I can just grab a print in the tray, lock it, and hang it to drain without splashing. It swings easily and adjusts to the proper height over any tray or the water holding bath. When it isn't needed, just push it back out of the way.

A small convenience that I use dozens of times during a session

Max Power · Apr 16, 2005

I use a changeing bag to load my reels and I found that after a couple of minutes, it got kinda humid in the bag (eww, gross!) and made the loading more difficult.

To counteract this, I now throw in 5-6 dessicant packages before I start the process. It works like a charm!

I also use the dessicant packages in the ziplocks into which I put my bulk loaders before I put them into the refrigerator.

Kent

Flotsam · Apr 17, 2005

Not a darkroom tip so much but I have found that after diveing under and out of a darkcloth a few times, my hair (what is left of it) starts to look like Nick Nolte's in his DUI mug shot. Not that I mind frightening children and being known as "That crazyman in the park that wears a black cape and stares at a three legged accordian." but static electrified hair gets bothersome.

I've found that one of those linen cycling caps, the thin beanie type, usually covered with advertising, with the small bill that is traditionally worn to the back is the perfect under-the-darkcloth cap. Light, close-fitting, absorbant and has the total mass of a small handkerchief. Easy to stuff in a pocket. They should just call them LF photographer's caps.

blackmelas · Apr 23, 2005

Flotsam said:
Here's a simple but useful gimmick that I came up with years ago when I was printing 10 hours a day in a custom lab. I'm still using the first one that I made.

By bending the wand so that the handle is about four inches higher than the dodging shape, not only does it throw a more out of focus shadow but the shadow of the handle moves around much more radically than the shape while dodging. No more prints ruined by wand shadow, ever.

A couple of weeks ago I made a buy that led me to create a variation of Neal's bent handle dodging wand. I bought one of those magnets with an 18" flexible wire and handle at a hardware store. They market them for picking up dropped screw from hard to reach places. With this I create a mask or a shape for dodging and put three or four staples through the center (with the bent arms of the staples up so as not to scratch the print if using the shape as a mask). With the magnet I then can quickly pick up the mask in the middle of an exposure or exhange dodging shapes.
James

pgomena · Apr 24, 2005

A trick I learned to control print developer temperatures in warm/cold darkroom conditions was to keep a quart ziplock of ice or hot water handy. Swish it through the tray a few times until your thermometer comes back to temperature. Usually only takes a few seconds and keeps developing times consistent.

Pete Gomena

Mongo · Apr 24, 2005

pgomena said:
A trick I learned to control print developer temperatures in warm/cold darkroom conditions was to keep a quart ziplock of ice or hot water handy. Swish it through the tray a few times until your thermometer comes back to temperature. Usually only takes a few seconds and keeps developing times consistent.

Pete Gomena

I do a similar thing, but I use half-filled plastic 1L soda bottles. They freeze quickly in the freezer, and can bring a few liters of water down a few degrees in a matter of minutes. I keep a couple of them all of the time, and grab a frozen one when the one I've been using has to go back into the freezer. I also keep a couple filled with hot water handy during a session in the darkroom. Works like a charm...and since they're only half full they're easy to pick and hold onto by the top.

David H. Bebbington · Apr 24, 2005

One handy printing tool which some people seem not to have heard of is a piece of black paper rolled into a cone (with a hole at the bottom) for localised burning-in - preferably 2 cones of different sizes, one can be very long, just 3 or 4 inches shorter than the enlarging lens/paper distance for your favorite print size. You can of course make a similar shape with your hands, but the paper cone is much easier and more consistent.

Another thing I would not be without in the darkroom is my Hama press-to-open stainless steel print tongs. Some people love to plunge their hands into chemicals, I avoid this at all costs, saves so much hand-washing in between finishing one print and going to pick up the next sheet of unexposed paper.

craigclu · Apr 24, 2005

I was reminded last evening of something that works for me when I'm dealing with gnarly paper in the darkroom. I use the two sided easy-release tape that 3M includes with their window insulating kits. It's very thin (about 3 mils) and my borderless easel is a perfect place to add the extra flatness for control of curled or uneven paper. A few small strips, each located at trouble points seems to last many darkroom sessions and doesn't seem to intefere with focus issues (I've rationalized that it's much better than an uncontrolled surface). It's just slightly too sticky initially and the first few sheets need to be carefully removed but they quickly settle in with just the right adhesion.

MurrayMinchin · Apr 24, 2005

I don't have a temperature controlled water supply in my darkroom, but my print washer does...well, sort of. I took an old dial thermometer and inserted it through a small incision just below where the intake hose attaches to the tap, then sealed things up with duct tape. This way I know what temperature is going in instead of what's coming out.

That 'burning in cone' caught my attention...when using a card with a hole in it, the light goes through the hole, hits the paper, bounces back up to the card, some of which then bounces back to the paper. A cone would end that!

Murray

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