HELP - Darkroom Novice!

I have been trying to enlarge my own negatives for a while now and I am not getting the results that I would like.

I am looking for a GOOD book or other resource that helps explain all the techniques (and how to do them) that help make a great B+W print. I know that a print starts with a negative. I am getting flat and low contrast prints (I have used filters to increase contrast), my sky is muddy (clouds not white) - I have been doing some burning and dodging to help but I am still not getting the result s that I want (I know practice is very important) but I need to make sure I am going about this the right way. I have looked at some techniques used by other photographers like: Dead Link Removed. They help because he shows exactly what he has done to make the image. I cannot figure out how he has time to do everything that needs to be done.

I am getting very frustrated - please help.

I can heartily recommend "The Photographer's Master Printing Course" by Tim Rudman.
He clearly explains everything from building a darkroom to complex printing operations with examples and other images.
Amazon UK
Amazon.com

ben-s said:

I can heartily recommend "The Photographer's Master Printing Course" by Tim Rudman.
He clearly explains everything from building a darkroom to complex printing operations with examples and other images.

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I will second this recommendation for this book. It provides a great deal of information that is straight forward to follow. I also recommend Roger Hicks' book "Darkroom Basics and Beyond". He has great step by step illustrations for all of the basic processes that I found very helpful as well. Good luck with your journey.

If you're getting muddy prints you might be using too much exposure. What filter are you typically using for printing?

Generally, I like to identify the deepest shadow (lightest part of the neg) in the negative and do my test strip around that area so I can see when I get a true black there. I then test that exposure for a larger area and look at the highlights. If I have a black but don't have a white (where I want whites) then I increase the contrast and re-test. If I don't have a good tonal range then I drop the contrast until I find that I lose my white.

If you don't have a true black or a true white then you need more contrast. It can be a little tough to gauge that at first, I recommend taking a small piece of paper and exposing it to light (take it out of the darkroom) and then process it, this will give you a "black card" that you can hold next to your print and compare if you really have a true black. You can make a "white card" if you want by just processing an unexposed piece of paper.

Many workers, and I am one of them, would say that "frugal" is working backwards. I learned very early that when printing one should test strip in the significant highlights then check the first print. If shadows are gray, use more contrast, if important shadows are to dense, use less contrast.

The Tim Rudman ibook s probably the best modern book out there."The Art of Black & White Enlarging" by David Vestal is out of print, but easily located. It is also excellent and down to earth.

SMO

Tims book is good. Another pair of books that I like a lot for starting out are Henry Horensteins books - 'Basic Black and White', and 'Beyond Basic Black and White'.

If you are getting low contrast, make sure that you don't have a light leak in your darkroom, or unsafe safe lights. The easiest way to determine this is to take a sheet of paper, Put it in the easel, lay a coin on it, and leave it there for a couple of minutes, then develop it and see if you can see the outline of the coin - if you can, then you need to figure out where that extra light is coming from. Also check to make sure that your enlarger lens is clean, and that you don't have excessive light leaks from your enlarger.

Make sure that your darkroom is light tight and that your safelight is safe. Take a strip of photographic paper, very briefly expose it under the enlarger so that it is sensitised and will produce a light grey when developed. Then place 5 coins on the paper and leave it for five minutes. Every minute, take a coin off the paper. When the 5 minutes is up, develop the paper, face down in the developer, stop and fix as normal. Now check the paper. You should have a uniform grey strip of paper. However, if you can see where the coins were placed, then you have a problem with light fogging the paper.

Other things to check -- how old is your paper? How old are the chemicals? Are you developing the paper for the full recommended time? You're not pulling it out of the developer when you think it's OK are you?! Is the temperature of the developer correct -- should normally be 20C.

These can all affect the print contrast.

Mike

Mark_S just beat me to the safelight test!!

Two books have really helped me get up to speed fast in the darkroom after a too long interval (since the school darkroom, in fact!) and those are
Post Exposure by Ctein, Focal Press
and
Way Beyond Monochrome by Ralph W. Lambrecht and Chris Woodhouse (contributors here, I seem to remember), Fountain Press
Among them, they're quite encompassing!

Christoph

My favourites in this area are the already mentioned Tim Rudman book, Les Mclean's "Creative Black and White Photography" (particularly good on split-grade printing), Larry Bartlett's "Black and White Photographic Printing Workshop" and Eddie Ephraums' "Creative Elements" (a fan of very "strong" printing). Way Beyond Monochrome is a more weighty and wide-ranging tomb, but does have an excellent description and examples of the split-grade printing method.

I am also one of the "expose for the highlights, grade for the shadows" proponents. Start at grade 2 and get the highlights where you want them and then adjust the hard/soft filtration to get the shadows where you want them. In practice you will need to adjust the exposure a bit too as you change to harder/softer grades, but not usually by much. Most problems I have are caused by badly developed negatives where the sky is too dark on the negative compared to the foreground requiring a lot of burning in the sky. Ideally, I should forget trying to print it but if I do try, I ignore the sky at first and get my exposure and grade(s) for the foreground correct before worrying about the sky. Trying to get both correct in one or two exposures is begging for trouble with such a negative.

Good luck, Bob.

Way Beyond Monochrome by Ralph W. Lambrecht and Chris Woodhouse is a very good book indeed but IMO its really aimed at the more advanced printer...once youve got some experience under your belt I would consider it a must read! Until then it might be best to start with something more basic and very readable like Henry Horensteins or Roger Hicks' books as already mentioned.
My 2pence
Kev

Jim Noel said:

Many workers, and I am one of them, would say that "frugal" is working backwards. I learned very early that when printing one should test strip in the significant highlights then check the first print. If shadows are gray, use more contrast, if important shadows are to dense, use less contrast.

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Thanks for the post, I've always done shadows first but your method does make more sense. With the way I was explaining it if you have a black but don't have a white then you might need more contrast or you might have too much exposure, but with the other way if you're highlights are good but you don't have a black you know you need more contrast.

Learn something new every day!

This may be obvious, but you need to start with good negatives. It's pretty difficult to get a crisp tonally rich print from a negative that doesn't have that information. In addition to above suggested books, another good but simple read is Fred Picker's Zone VI Workshop and The Fine Print (can be purchased for a $1 each on www.abebooks.com).

If you want a book similar to the f45 website, buy the book black&white workshop from Bartlett and Tarrant. Only Second Hand available.
If you want to start creative, this is first choice. It opened my eyes! Over 40 examples like the ones you see on the website.

BUT: you have to know, the difficult thing is NOT to exercise the dodging and burning in the darkroom, the difficult thing is to pre-visualize. I mean to look at the plain negative and then to imagine how the final print should look like.

Overall, first optimize your negatives. Pull them half to 3/4 stop and shorten dev-time! If the plain negative is too greyish, then there might be other problems in your work-flow. Where do you live? Try to find (over apug) other printer in your area tovisit and look how they work.

Another point to mention is, that of course, dodging and burning are manipulative techniques. There are purists who insist of printing only the negative "as it is". I personally think, that f45 does way too much.

I had Rudman, and sold it fast. It helped me zero.

Thanks for all the advice

Another reason to love APUG! A lot of great advice - will definitely check out those books too. The light leak thing may be the problem - now that you mention it I do not seem to be getting BLACK blacks. What is the best way to test this - the coin trick? I think some light might be spilling out the side of the enlarger (an old Omega D2). I did not think it would make much difference. I am looking to get WHITE whites and BLACK blacks in the same print. Should I be usig a red or other color filter? Does film ISO matter (I assume slower is better for higher contrast).

Again THANKS to all the Apuggers out there.

Light leaks as mentioned should be dealt with. Also as mentioned chemical and paper age could be a problem. If you are having problems getting Black in your print you could try exposeing a small piece of print paper to room light and then processing it normally (in safelight conditions) if this does not produce BLACK you have paper or chemistry problems.

Light leaking from the enlarger will cause gray highlights, flattening contrast. Then if you reduce exposure to produce lighter highlights, your shadows will be underexposed, and not Black. Your darkroom needs to be absent of uncontrolled white light. The test mentioned above using coins is an important step to check for light leaks. If your enlarger is leaking alot that light will rlflect on to your print paper and fog it. You'll need to reduce these leaks some how depending on where they are coming from. A test of this is a variation of the coin test. Expose a stirp of paper to produce a pale gray. leave the paper on the easel, put down a couple coins. Cover the enlarger lens and turn on the enlager for a couple minuets removing a coin each minuet etc and process. As before one should NOT see circles where the coins were. But test first as stated above to check leaking room.
I recall you say you are new to darkroom work. Is your darkroom new? Are your paper and chemicals new?
Darkroom work can be frustrating. Also extremely rewarding. A step by step approach to a problem often identifies the real source and helps us learn the process.

jsfyfe said:

This may be obvious, but you need to start with good negatives. It's pretty difficult to get a crisp tonally rich print from a negative that doesn't have that information. In addition to above suggested books, another good but simple read is Fred Picker's Zone VI Workshop and The Fine Print (can be purchased for a $1 each on www.abebooks.com).

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I'll second that.

A few thoughts:

Evaluate your negatives or bring them to someone who can give you expert feedback on whether the exposure and development are good.

1. Test for light leaks bad safelights in darkroom etc....

2. Do your negatives have enough contrast? Maybe your negs need more zip. To get some idea, shoot a test roll (or a few test sheets) of same subject. Just aim at a subject with some white in daylight as well as a range from bright to dark, and some significant similar areas in shadow. Shoot the same image over and over to fill up a roll or two or three. Shoot a basic setup - sun at your back etc. Nothing tricky - basic - basic. Cut the neg into short sections or strips, just long enough to be fed into your developing reels. Develop one for your normal, and and the others for various extended times, using whatever is your standard proceedure. (Having some standard proceedure is crucial. If you don't, start now.)

Mark with a permanent marker each short test film strip with some indicator of added or reduced dev time, i.e. +10%, + 20% +30%etc. so you will get some trackability of results.

Now print one shot from each test strip as best you can. Maybe one of the extended development strips will come out with more zip. That would be a strong hint your previous negs are a bit underdeveloped.

To be sure your safelight isn't killing your prints by fogging the highlights a little, see if you get better prints working completely in dark making a print. If your highlights are clearer and brighter it's likely the safelight is not safe - too close to the paper or not filtering out the light that the paper "sees".

3. Another possibility - dead / weak developers. Try mixing a more concentrated solution for film OR paper. Or try new / fresh chemicals.

4. Another possibility - light leak or bounce around in camera. Get a friend to shoot a roll using another camera at same place as your test roll, in same light. If the friend's roll prints better, you might want to take a really close look at your camera with respect to leaks or really bad internal bounce of flare inside camera.

5. Are your shots WAYYY underexposed? That will produce muddy highlights and nonexistant shadow detail.

6. Are you agitating the film enough in the develper? Really unagitiated development can produce flat mottled images much like what you described.

Filters on the camera are useful, but for basic shots, your proceedures need to be working. You will get further faster if you get your basics in order before you move on to complications.

An excellent test of basic exposure skills and of the camera itself is to shoot a roll slides. Shoot them at the indicated speed and shoot in a simple setup - sun at your back etc. If they come back in good shape, you can pretty much eliminate the camera and exposure end of your inquiries, since the processing is standardised. Good slides will tell you to look to what you are doing in the darkroom.

Best,

C

I'll second what others have said about safe lights, chemicals etc etc.
I have seen people placing a paterson safelight on their baseboard so that they can see better. They wonder why their prints are fogged.

Safe lights are NOT safe, especially with variable contrast paper. They need to be a good 4 feet from paper and preferably pointing at ceiling so that illumination is via bounced light. That way you should be able to get several minutes safety.

As far as your negatives are concerned, providing your shadow areas have some detail in them and are not just clear negative, then they should be printable.

It's important to be sure your equipment is working properly. If you are using a dichroic colour head you must be sure the filters are dialing in and out correctly. Try printing a negative with no filtration and see what you get. Double check that filters are dialled OUT. That should be a bench mark for approx grade 2. i.e. VC paper printed with no filters in place should be approx grade 2. If that is really soft then it's either your negs, safe lights or chemistry. So then print without filters and without safe lights on. If thats still soft then its negs or chemistry. SO then print with no filters, no safe lights and fresh chemistry making sure there is no cross over of chemicals from stop to dev for example. If thats still soft then it can only be your negs that are too soft.

Interesting

I think I can narrow this down to two sources - chemistry or light leaks. I think the safe lights were too close - how far from the work area should they be? And the chemistry I mixed myself and followed the directions to a tee but some of it might be too old! How long will it last in the jug (1 gal)? I am using dektol for paper and tmax for film.

The problem is most of the negatives I am developing were developed by a lab. I am just starting to develop my own neg's. I have been using the development times I found on the massive dev site (is there a better place tio check)? When I develop I agitate for the 1st 30 seconds and then for 5 seconds every 30 seconds until done. I think the negatives look pretty good (again - I am a novice).

One more thing - maybe this will help - when I do a contact sheet I get good results - meaning the print I see on the strip looks like and even exposure but when I try to print it I get some weird underexposure (darker areas) problems and have to do some burning dodging.

Does that info help?

if your enlarger is a condenser, then the bulb must be centred so that you get even illumination. check this on the baseboard with neg carrier in but no negative.

I don't know your enlarger but many have negative masking blades which move move in and out. Are they fully out so that edge of neg is not partially masked?

visually check your lens is clear and that the aperture is working properly.

safelight should be at least 4 feet away and point it at ceiling and not at print.(its not called a darkroom for nothing!)

Does neg in neg carrier sit centrally above lens and below condensers?

Are condensers the correct size for your neg format?

Are condensers arranged correctly?

if contacts are good then its obviously not your film.

lots to check for...

percepts said:

Safe lights are NOT safe, especially with variable contrast paper. They need to be a good 4 feet from paper and preferably pointing at ceiling so that illumination is via bounced light. That way you should be able to get several minutes safety.

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FWIW, I recently replaced a traditional safelight (using a 15W tungsten bulb and amber filter) with one of Dead Link Removed red LED bulbs. When I first replaced it, I thought for sure I'd have fogging problems, the bulb was so much brighter than the old amber safelight. I ran some tests, though, and it seems good up to at least 5 minutes with Fomapan VC RC paper. (Yes, I pre-flashed the paper.) The new LED bulb is mounted in the old safelight's housing, but without the amber filter in place, about 4 feet from my developing trays. Of course, YMMV; different papers, exact placement, etc., can all affect the "safety" of safelights. Running your own tests is always advisable.

those little red dome paterson safelights will fog VC paper in a few seconds if they are anywhere near the paper.
I used a college darkroom with red strips lights which all the students thought were safe. I did a test and found that safe time was around 20 seconds!!!

smo2 said:

I think I can narrow this down to two sources - chemistry or light leaks. I think the safe lights were too close - how far from the work area should they be? And the chemistry I mixed myself and followed the directions to a tee but some of it might be too old! How long will it last in the jug (1 gal)? I am using dektol for paper and tmax for film.

The problem is most of the negatives I am developing were developed by a lab. I am just starting to develop my own neg's. I have been using the development times I found on the massive dev site (is there a better place tio check)? When I develop I agitate for the 1st 30 seconds and then for 5 seconds every 30 seconds until done. I think the negatives look pretty good (again - I am a novice).

One more thing - maybe this will help - when I do a contact sheet I get good results - meaning the print I see on the strip looks like and even exposure but when I try to print it I get some weird underexposure (darker areas) problems and have to do some burning dodging.

Does that info help?

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If the contact sheets look good (shadow detail as well as highlight detail visible) then exposure and developing are going to be good, so you can forget about those for now. Some burning/dodging is almost always needed but if your contacts look good, they should look good at a slightly higher grade as enlargements: e.g. if your contacts look good printed at grade 2 then an 8x10 might need G2.5 or G3 - but that's only a guide, as with most things in life there are no fixed rules...

Kodak safelight testing procedure: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/products/techInfo/k4/k4TestSafelite.shtml (The Ilford recommended method is essentially the same, but the Kodak version is easier to read).

I used the Paterson domes for years with no problems (I now use LEDs). All filters fade with time: plastic probably faster than glass (IIRC, Paterson recommended changing filters every 2 years - I may be mis-remembering, that, but it sounds about right) which is one reason why I switched to LED - plus you get brighter and more comfortable light by switching to amber/orange. The important thing is to TEST whatever lighting you are using: even deep-red LEDs will fog paper if bright/close enough.

Good luck, Bob.

All of the books noted are excellent. My personal choice for a relative beginner ( and even for one who is far advanced-vide infra ) would be, "Elements of Black and White Photography" by George Todd. By using examples of various scenes to be photographed the author introduces skills ( both in the "taking" and in the "producing" in the darkroom ) needed to "make" that photo. At the end of the book one has covered an extensive amount of material which has been presented in an easily understood manner. The illustrations and charts are excellent, and the prose is clear and succinct. Might I add that the book is useful even for those who are beyond the beginner stage, and can be used to re-enforce concepts and skills that might have become slightly atrophied.

Edwin