Glow effect

[CCOS]

Looking for a way to make a glow effect on my b/w prints both toned and not. Easy on digital images but not the kind we are working on so... any one?

Jesper

 

[Kvistgaard]

Dav Jesper,

found this at the luminous-landscape.com site. (c) Mike Johnston.

Hope it helps!

Søren

 

[Vaughn]

Printing part of your exposure thru a stretched out nylon stocking?

Vaughn

 

[sdivot]

For a slightly diffused effect, I like to use a Hasselblad soft focus filter. Usually a #2 works well. Just hold it under the lens for as little or as much of the exposure as you want.
It must be image appropriate of course, but on the right image it looks very nice.
Try it you might like it.
Steve

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Looking for a way to make a glow effect on my b/w prints both toned and not.

The first requirement is a subject that glows or that is photographed in glowing light. Something photographed in harsh noon-day sun will never glow no matter how you print it.

Keep subject contrast low - or the glow can turn into glare - there should be detail in the highest of the highlights. In general there should be no pure white in the print. As mentioned in the excerpt from Mike Johnston (above), you need to make sure you are not printing with too much contrast: make test prints at lowering contrast grades to find the optimum. Print for the highlights and light midtones and burn the shadows in as needed.

 

[AlanC]

Mike Johnson says you should shoot away from the sun to get " the glow " but the wonderful English photographer James Ravilious often shot straight into the sun and made prints with an abundance of glow.
He used pre-war leica lenses for their low contrast and to avoid flare used black tape on the lens hood to mask off everything exept the picture area.

Alan Clark

 

[Louis Nargi]

great post

 

[phenix]

Print partially (10 to 30% of the total exposure) a little bit out of focus. This out of focus should be done on the side of a larger format, not of a smaller one. You have to try different ratios of exposure and amounts of out of focus in order to find what works for you.

 

[freddiebotham]

breathe on the enlarger lens
(preferably on a filter in front of the lens, to avoid leaving anything undesirable on the glass)

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Diffusing at the enlarging stage produces anti-glow--the shadows bleed into the highlights. If you do it very subtly, usually with a mix of exposure with diffusion and without diffusion, then you can get a reasonable softening effect. If you overdo it, it becomes kind of ghoulish. In either case, I wouldn't call that a glow.

To get the highlights to spray into the shadows, which I think of as a "glow", you need to do it when you're making the photograph, and Mike Johnston offers many fine suggestion in his article, linked above.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Fingerprints or Vaseline on the rear element of the lens will do the trick.

Steve

 

[EASmithV]

Vibrating print easel?

 

[Mark Fisher]

I sometimes play with single element home made lenses in large format and they get serious "glow" in areas of high contrast. In 35mm, I believe the LensBaby lenses are single element and show that feature now. I don't seem to have any decent images on my computer with the home made lenses but I've attached a test shot I did with my latest (not yet perfect) creation.

 

[elekm]

Maybe you should use a Leica lens.

Seriously, I've used women's nylons to good effect.

 

[Toffle]

Maybe you should use a Leica lens.

Seriously, I've used women's nylons to good effect.

Me too.

What? Oh... you print with them...

 

[Dietmar Wolf]

Simple. Pull (expose more and develop less) and shoot in very good light. If you pull, you will need to print with higher grade.

 

[Ole]

The best "darkroom antiglow" I have got by using an anti-newton MF slide frame under the lens for 1/6th to 1/3rd of the total exposure time.

Totally different but at least as good is using a 180mm Voigtländer W.Z. enlarger lens, possibly the only enlarger lens designed to be soft. Great for 9x12cm to 5x5", a bit too long for MF and too short for 5x7". It was only made in 180mm. And it costs a lot more than a pack of 6x6cm AN glass slide frames...

 

[archphoto]

It reminds me a little of the Imagon images I made.
This effect could be obtained by 2 lenses at least: the Imagon and the Mamiya RB 150SF.
You will need to have a bit of contrasty light to make full use of it.
Have to get back to that kind of photography again when I am in Holland again.

I read somewhere in the thread about the Lensbaby: I don't think it is suited for it with its curved field focus.

Peter

 

[c6h6o3]

For a slightly diffused effect, I like to use a Hasselblad soft focus filter. Usually a #2 works well. Just hold it under the lens for as little or as much of the exposure as you want.
It must be image appropriate of course, but on the right image it looks very nice.
Try it you might like it.
Steve

I often like it very much, but diffusion is not glow. Glow has to do only with tonalities. Diffusion has to do with sharpness.

The article was full of inaccuracies. Just a few of them:

• There are no thick emulsion films available any more. None. Plus-X was never one of them anyway, at least not for the last 35 years or so.
• I can make glowing prints from negatives shot with my Red Dot Artar, a very bright and contrasty lens, or my Dagor, which isn't even coated (but actually sharper than the Artar) or my large format Nikkor lens. The lens make virtually no difference at all.
• Do not use a conventional developer, especially one with hydroquinone in it like D-76 or HC-110. These developers yield way too much contrast because of the extra kick from the hydroquinone. (D-23 is ok. It's basically D-76 without the hydroquinone. They're very different and he should not recommend them together.) Use either a soft working non-staining developer like 777 or Crawley's FX-2, or use Pyrocat HD, which is inherently self compensating. The idea is to compress the scale from the bottom up by increasing exposure while simultaneously limiting the highlights through less development.

Basically you want to expose more and develop less. I rate my 400TMax at 200, and put the deepest shadows on Zone IV. There are those who might say that I actually am therefore rating the film at 100. Could be, but I get beautiful prints easily.

 

[John Bragg]

The best way I have found to get the glow in my prints is to expose generously as Mike Johnston says and use a developer that exhibits good microcontrast like Rodinal 1:50. Develop gently with not too much shaking the tank and develop just enough and no more. Keep those highlights in check and you will be able to print straight with a bare minimum of burning and dodging. Used in this way with a film like Tri-X or Neopan 400 and agitating minimally, the whites will take on a delicate glow with all values discernably separated.

 

[ic-racer]

A lot of this discussion is useless without examples. For under-the-enlarger lens diffusion, results can look like this. This may be 'glow' to some.
http://www.shutterbug.com/techniques/pro_techniques/0908personal/index.html

In my own work I have obtained what I would call 'glow' with a 50mm Planar 1.4 used at 1.4 with T-max 400.

I also get what I call glow with a Minox and Lith printing:

 

[c6h6o3]

the whites will take on a delicate glow with all values discernably separated.

I think it's the separation in the midtones that really makes the difference.

 

[Dietmar Wolf]

There is no glow effect in your pic c6h.... It looks dull.

 

[aparat]

I just bought a Minolta MD 28mm lens for $10. The lens produces a surprisingly pleasing glow effect. I am not sure if the effect is due to some "defect" or the lens design. In any case, I find it cool! Here's a scan of the entire frame with a 100% crop in the corner.

 

[eclarke]

There is no glow effect in your pic c6h.... It looks dull.

It's almost pointless to make a decision about the qualities of a print by looking at a scan on a stinking computer screen...Evan Clarke