How would you go about printing this?

Hi APUG,

I just wanted to find out from better printers than I, how would they go about printing this image in the darkroom as my printing skills are fairly limited especially when it comes to burning and dodging.

First is the image that I scanned and edited in lightroom, which is how I more or less want the final print to be:



Second is a darkroom print exposed for the leaves on the left:



An last a print which I exposed very dark while dodging with a small dodging tool the face and the leaves and then bleached back. The dodging didn't do very much as far as I could tell and the bleaching wasn't very effective, it only made the parts that interest me look very muddy:



I'm thinking I should first make the exposure for #2 and then expose for #3 while holding back the leaves and the face solidly, but I am not sure I have the skills to do this properly or whether it would be the right way to go about this.

Any comments?

The image you are trying to achieve looks like a very high contrast image so I would suggest you try to print this at grade 5 (the hardest grade) and then decide where you might need to dodge and burn. Your darkroom print is overexposed all over and the contrast is too low for what you are looking for.

Below 2 prints of the same negative at grade 2 and at grade 5 to give you some idea of how altering the grade affects contrast.

Svenedin said:

The image you are trying to achieve looks like a very high contrast image so I would suggest you try to print this at grade 5 (the hardest grade) and then decide where you might need to dodge and burn. Your darkroom print is overexposed all over and the contrast is too low for what you are looking for.

Click to expand...

That's the way I would do it also.

I think it is more than just a grade 5. It looks like a line-art type of approach would be necessary.

You can try lith printing, which may give you more of the extreme contrast it seems like you want. Same as your regular printing process, just using lith developer and paper.

Good quick tutorial here: Dead Link Removed

Good Luck!

I don't think even a grade 5 would get you close. Perhaps making the highest contrast print you can, make a film negative of that print (develop the neg for high contrast), and make another print.

Do a Lith print, or make an 8x10 enlargement on to lithography film and contract print that.

Thank you all for your contribution.

It's interesting, I was sort of looking for a method which would exclude lith printing, hence the idea of printing very dark and bleaching afterwards.
Now would you go about dodging and burning for a lith print or not? My experience of lith is just to overexpose and let the print do its thing in the dev...

larfe said:

Thank you all for your contribution.

It's interesting, I was sort of looking for a method which would exclude lith printing, hence the idea of printing very dark and bleaching afterwards.
Now would you go about dodging and burning for a lith print or not? My experience of lith is just to overexpose and let the print do its thing in the dev...

Click to expand...

Man, your example just screamed "LITH ME", to my eyes anyway.

For contrast, less overexposure than you'd think. I dodge and burn lith prints constantly. Burn times can get long of course, but nothing spectacular. I spend more time flashing for highlights, to the point of making raised masks and so on. You wouldn't need to flash this image though. Post-bleaching could help pop the contrast, as could spot-bleaching.

Man, if that's the look you like, you should be gathering up all the lith-able paper you can! it's extreme compared to most lith prints, but lith can go far beyond the normal contrast grades, and you can really grain an image up.