How could i achieve this look with an RA4 print?

[tbeaman]

thanks for the suggestion Koraks. i’ve found the need & benefit of seeing what the print looks like either neutralized (or where i’m happy with it) prior to pre-flashing - when experimenting w/ different color hues.

for me, i use the pre-flash a ‘cherry on top’ & can only determine what color/tone intensity i prefer once the print is where it needs to be.

i’ve definitely had my fair share of needing to slightly move points on the color head in either direction to compensate depending on the print - but i think in the long run i’m saving more paper & time than if i were to arbitrarily apply a pre-flashed hue/tone to (x) amount of paper & be stuck with that particular look (specifically in my highlights) & have to troubleshoot that.

i wouldn’t be surprised if things change the more i keep doing it, however. seems to be the case every time i finish a session

I have very very limited experience with color flashing, but I wanted to mention that one time I tried do a quick and dirty experiment with it by leaving the negative in that I had already done a successful test print with but didn’t like the blown highlights, and simply added a diffuser under the lens to get my flash (with adjusted exposure through either lens diaphragm or time) and it actually worked quite well.

I wouldn’t be surprised if that would work for many images since rudimentary automatic color balancing is usually based in the idea that most images will average out to gray, and in the case of flashing, an averaged out color cast would match the overall tone of the image. In my case there was an abundance of red but that added a nice warmth to the highlights that complimented the rest.

 

[Robbie]

that particular “Paper Flasher” is only going to output one specific light with no ability to use different tonality hue change the way you can if you were using an actual color enlarger with the CMY channels. (you won’t be able to alter color when pre-flashing.)

most people have a dedicated color enlarger that you can flash your paper with when needed so you don’t have to do what i do which is take your negative carrier out (so you’re not exposing an image into the paper when flashing) & pre-flash your paper - then put it back in & re-compose/focus your image.

Do you have any results you can share that you’ve achieved by using the dedicated pre flash unit?