Laptop or LCD monitor in the darkroom?

jstraw · Oct 26, 2006

Does anyone know if there is something like a Rosco gel that will make an LCD screen darkroom safe for paper?

Also, if anyone has any experience with this, are there any settings you use that make your screen more readable through a red gel?

Eric Rose · Oct 26, 2006

Why on earth would you want to have a computer running in your darkroom? For myself, I enjoy my time away from such things when I'm in my dark space. But I must admit I have the digitaltruth dev times on my Palm.

David A. Goldfarb · Oct 26, 2006

W. Eugene Smith used to have a B&W television with a red gel over the screen in the darkroom, I've read.

Since screens don't all have the same brightness, it's probably best to run some tests. You may have to turn the screen brightness down or use more than one layer of red gel. Turning the brightness down saves battery power, so that's probably the best option. You can usually control it in your power settings or desktop appearance settings, if you're using a PC.

leeturner · Oct 26, 2006

Eric Rose said:
Why on earth would you want to have a computer running in your darkroom? For myself, I enjoy my time away from such things when I'm in my dark space. But I must admit I have the digitaltruth dev times on my Palm.

There is some quite decent darkroom software available for the PC including hardware interfaces so it acts a bit like a Stop Clock Pro. I use one for process timing as it lets me have all of my film and dev types predefined.

srs5694 · Oct 26, 2006

It might be possible to physically hack a monitor cable to cut the green and blue lines, giving a red-only display. (Some monitors accept separate red, green, and blue input cables, so you might be able to do the same thing by using such a monitor and cable and leaving the green and blue cables unplugged.) I can't guarantee that a monitor would react the way you want to the lack of green and blue input, though; nor can I guarantee that the red phosphors in a color monitor would be safe or that there would be no inadvertent activation of green or blue phosphors. Still, it might be worth investigating.

Alex Bishop-Thorpe · Oct 26, 2006

What about the old DOS based interfaces? Just set the colour to red and black I suppose, it might be worth a shot...Something to experiment with in general, definately. I assume the red screen would work ok though.

Bob F. · Oct 26, 2006

I use two layers of red gel from a local artists supply shop over my laptop display (taped to a cardboard sleeve that slips over the screen and blocks the drive lights etc). A bit dark, but I can read APUG on it in the dark...

Cheers, Bob.

jnash67 · Oct 26, 2006

Re: Red screen covers

I know alot of guys use a red gel covering while they use their lap tops for astronomy. (guiding scopes, astrophotography, etc.) Just google it, I am sure you can find a site.

butterflydream · Oct 27, 2006

What I do: If you're using Mac OS X as I do, you can set your monitor to grayscale at system preferences, universal access. If necessary you can inverse the black and white also there, in order to make background black. Then cover with safelight filter.

htmlguru4242 · Oct 27, 2006

Rosco gels should work fine. Ovbviously, do a test to find out for sure. If you have a Macintosh (OS X or even 7,8 or 9), you should set it to greyscale. Otherwise, the colors other than red will not be visible, which should be fine for almost everything.

I've turned all channels except for red off on my LCD, and it looks / works fine.

George Collier · Oct 28, 2006

A commercial photographer friend of mine, before the digital era, used to watch a little B&W tv in her darkroom all the time when printing, with a simple piece of red plexiglass taped over the monitor with red lith tape, and covered any small lights elsewhere on the tv with black tape. She spent many hours processing and liked the distraction. Probably less of an issue with graded papers, which, I believe, are blue sensitive only.

butterflydream · Feb 25, 2007

http://www.adpartnership.net/DarkAdapted/index.html

With this software you can turn your monitor red monochrome.
It's a freeware.

Dave Miller · Feb 25, 2007

Bob F. said:
I use two layers of red gel from a local artists supply shop over my laptop display (taped to a cardboard sleeve that slips over the screen and blocks the drive lights etc). A bit dark, but I can read APUG on it in the dark...

Cheers, Bob.

Bob, that's sad; reading APUG in the dark:confused:

jstraw · Feb 25, 2007

butterflydream said:
http://www.adpartnership.net/DarkAdapted/index.html

With this software you can turn your monitor red monochrome.
It's a freeware.

I understand that the intended purpose of this software is not to protect light-sensitive materials but rather to keep your eyes adapted to the dark. This would be useful for say, DBI during stand deveopment. I could read APUG and keep my eyes adapted.

The trouble is, when I ran it, I don't see how it can possibly work...it changes screen gamma but white stays white.

bdial · Feb 25, 2007

On a PC you can use display properties in the control panel to make the windows, menus, text, etc. display in any color you like. For the desktop, you'd need to create an image in PS or whatever in your choosen color. Then it would be simply a matter of how much brightness to allow.
Macs don't have the same functionality, but you could use the same technique for the desktop, though not application windows. Maybe someone should make a safelight web page...

Photo Engineer · Feb 25, 2007

At Kodak, we used a green only B&W monitor in the DR for safety during emulsion making. Making color or coating were not amenable to monitors. Doing any pan work was not amenable to monitors.

PE

jstraw · Feb 25, 2007

I'm pretty sure that even a black (not off) desktop gives off light that's not safe. I think covering the lcd with a safelight filter is the only safe way.

patrickjames · Feb 26, 2007

The filter you are looking for is "Blood Red" by Lee. It omits all wavelengths below around 550nm. I looked into several other manufacturers gel filters and this was the only one I could find that would cut everything out. Most of the red filters do not cut everything out.

Bob F. · Feb 26, 2007

Dave Miller said:
Bob, that's sad; reading APUG in the dark:confused:

Well, it's mainly to use software for timing and f-stop printing but I gotta do something while I agitate the trays. Also lets me stream comedy shows off the Beeb site while I'm in the darkroom or play CDs...

Cheers, Bob.

gainer · Feb 26, 2007

The LCD has lower voltage and probably less chance of UV or X-ray radiation, which might not be attenuated by a many gel filters. You might make a funnel-like hood with a simple door on it. Then you wouldn't have to bother with filters or reduced screen brightness. It wouldn't take a lot of effort to make something out of matt board and duct tape. (We residents of Newport News VA used to call it "shipyard tape" because a lot of it was used at the shipyard . I don't live there anymore, and never worked at the shipyard when I did, but the habit continues. All the hardware stores knew what you wanted if you asked for shipyard tape.)

Loose Gravel · Feb 26, 2007

Eugene Smith had a TV for his guests.

I use red vinyl (looks like #25 vinyl) over my window and my TV. Works fine.

gainer · Feb 26, 2007

Red light is the least likely to affect dark adaptation. Be aware of some things that can happen. A high school band was to give a concert. Their music was printed using the old blue gel copier. The stage manager thought blue lighting would be very nice. The notes disappeared completely.

eddym · Feb 27, 2007

jstraw said:
Does anyone know if there is something like a Rosco gel that will make an LCD screen darkroom safe for paper?

Also, if anyone has any experience with this, are there any settings you use that make your screen more readable through a red gel?

Why not just turn off the monitor when you have sensitive materials out? I use my laptop when printing, because I keep all my printing records in a Lotus spreadsheet. My laptop (IBM/Lenovo) has a function key to turn off the monitor display, and I just click it when I'm ready to take the paper out of the box. There are also a couple of yellow led's that stay lit, so I place a black plastic bag (from a box of enlarging paper) on top of them. Simple.

jp80874 · Feb 27, 2007

Andrea Modica was here (University of Akron, OH) for a workshop and lecture a couple of years ago. She mentioned that she spent so much time in the darkroom that she had a TV going in there. This was so recent I would doubt it was B&W. She did mention having a filter in front of it, but sorry I have forgotten what sort. She prints platinum rather than silver so that might allow her more light depending on where in the process she turned on the TV.

John Powers

jstraw · Feb 27, 2007

eddym said:
Why not just turn off the monitor when you have sensitive materials out? I use my laptop when printing, because I keep all my printing records in a Lotus spreadsheet. My laptop (IBM/Lenovo) has a function key to turn off the monitor display, and I just click it when I'm ready to take the paper out of the box. There are also a couple of yellow led's that stay lit, so I place a black plastic bag (from a box of enlarging paper) on top of them. Simple.

Let's say I'm in the dark for 50 minutes of stand development by inspection with inspection at 12.5 minute intervals. There will be lids on the tanks while I have the computer display on. The purpose of filtering the light is to keep my eyes adapted to the dark. If I didn't need to keep my eyes adapted to the dark, I'd just turn the lights on.

Laptop or LCD monitor in the darkroom?

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency