How to estimate exposure times?

[ac12]

Short update:

I just did it! My first selfmade print last night! Was fun and i am feeling kind of addicted now. Yay!

One thing puzzled me, and i think i am just not getting my head around the corner here: the test strip showed me, that a 4sec
exposure time gave me rich blacks, nice highlights. I think it was f16.

If i want to get a longer exposure time...let's say to do dodging and burning...i need to open the aperture more?
Because at a camera you would close the aperture to get a longer exposure time. But with paper it works the opposite..
Correct?!

"Too dark? Expose less. Too light? Expose more"

Same as with your camera:
4 sec @ f16
8 sec @ f22
16 sec @ f32

f32 is kinda small, so you might look into changing the bulb in your enlarger to a smaller wattage bulb. That is what I had to do with my enlarger. It came with a 150w bulb, but the exposures were too short, so I went down to a 75w bulb. I only stopped at 75w because they don't have a smaller wattage bulb.

PS, I like using the projection print scale (PPS) better than a test strip. Because I can put the PPS just where I want it, the test strip covers a much large area of the image. But as was mentioned, that just gets you close. Once you make a print and evaluate it, then you have to "fine tune" the exposure to what you want it to look like.

 

[NedL]

...
I just did it! My first selfmade print last night! Was fun and i am feeling kind of addicted now. Yay!
...

That's wonderful! Great advice here but also have fun!!