My love/hate relationship with negative contrast and density

markbarendt said:

... When an individual chooses to avoid certain techniques, like burn and dodge or bleaching, they limit their options, they force compromises.

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<< to avoid? >> No Sir, is not avoiding, the individual decision is "to use" (or not) certain techniques (before & after), got nothing to do with "stay away / scape / evade / duck or elude doing ...", no Sir, nothing

<< They limit their options?, They force compromises? >> Once again, absolutely no Sir, by doing so (choose to use, or not to) they just decide what they need as the final result, and that could be with or without adding further frills.

markbarendt said:

The most common problems I hear of from people who avoid burn and dodge are of blocked up shadows and blown highlights. Sure they can still "fix" the offending problem with say n-1 development or softer paper, but that forces a compromise with the rest of the photo and then they typically complain about flat, lackluster mid tones.

The laws of nature aren't optional.

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I'm sorry for that people Mark, but to my way of thinking, they should "fix" those common problems trying to get a new fresh better negative (having fun with the laws of nature) and not by tinkering around with a lacklustre material.

markbarendt said:

We normally use paper as the final display medium, right?

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But that being so (normally) can never justify a poor negative, never. I insist, the negative is not a intermediate step, and the print is not always the final, although both can be licit and perfectly adopted for many people the other way around.

LAG,

You are missing the point: Dodging and burning are basic printmaking techniques (as are bleaching and spotting). People wouldn't use them if they didn't yield better prints than they could get from a "perfect" negative printed straight. They are not compromises nor triage for poor negatives. Avoiding their use is like a painter refusing to use a brush or palette knife... I get better prints from negatives I have to dodge and burn in many cases than I could ever get from one that would "straight print" without "blown highlights" or "empty shadows." Local contrast is better. You are more than welcome to strive for negatives that print straight without any manipulations if that's what you want, just be aware that expert photographers and printmakers embrace and take full advantage of a number of manipulation techniques as a matter of course; not because they are trying to save "poor" negatives, but because they expand their creative possibilities and extend the limits of the medium.

Best,

Doremus

Doremus Scudder said:

LAG,

You are missing the point: Dodging and burning are basic printmaking techniques (as are bleaching and spotting). People wouldn't use them if they didn't yield better prints than they could get from a "perfect" negative printed straight. They are not compromises nor triage for poor negatives. Avoiding their use is like a painter refusing to use a brush or palette knife... I get better prints from negatives I have to dodge and burn in many cases than I could ever get from one that would "straight print" without "blown highlights" or "empty shadows." Local contrast is better. You are more than welcome to strive for negatives that print straight without any manipulations if that's what you want, just be aware that expert photographers and printmakers embrace and take full advantage of a number of manipulation techniques as a matter of course; not because they are trying to save "poor" negatives, but because they expand their creative possibilities and extend the limits of the medium.

Best,

Doremus

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Plus one

I do not think I have ever made a print without dodge and burn, ok I lie contact prints of freshly processed film.

David Lyga said:

... wanted, with this thread, instead to express my dismay with finding a continuing merit with BOTH approaches to negative exposure. There are claims to be made for both negative 'scores'. Neither approach is 'wrong', but neither is definitively 'correct'. I want, intuitively, an approach towards negative exposure that is always correct,... - David Lyga

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Maybe my approach would work for you.

I start with a curve family... which gives you an idea where all possible combinations of exposure and development will arrive on film density...



No matter what, for D-76 this film will respond to light and development according to the curve family...

So it becomes a playground where you can mentally play out different ideas... always working with the same understanding...

For example, consider the idea of "pushing" which I hate to consider, especially for a 100 speed film. But suppose you wanted the stark look that comes with it...

I can see that on the absolute logarithmic scale, any film exposure less than about -2.5 log mcs will always result in density indistinguishable above base+fog. So if I want any detail, I have to make sure the film gets more light than that. So for TMAX 100, if I wanted to push, I might expose a highlight such that it arrives at -1.8 log mcs and develop the film 48 minutes in D-76 stock. (That might mean choosing an EI of 200 for my light meter).

The film doesn't change its speed, it's still 100... but what changes is the setting on your meter that will probably give you an acceptable picture on average...

Bob Carnie said:

Plus one

I do not think I have ever made a print without dodge and burn, ok I lie contact prints of freshly processed film.

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Plus two

Bob Carnie said:

I do not think I have ever made a print without dodge and burn, ok I lie contact prints of freshly processed film

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I often choose the negative for the APUG Postcard Exchange with a goal of minimizing the amount of burning and dodging necessary.

Small prints + multiple copies + complex printing = less fun

Doremus Scudder said:

LAG,

You are missing the point: Dodging and burning are basic printmaking techniques (as are bleaching and spotting). People wouldn't use them if they didn't yield better prints than they could get from a "perfect" negative printed straight. They are not compromises nor triage for poor negatives. Avoiding their use is like a painter refusing to use a brush or palette knife... I get better prints from negatives I have to dodge and burn in many cases than I could ever get from one that would "straight print" without "blown highlights" or "empty shadows." Local contrast is better. You are more than welcome to strive for negatives that print straight without any manipulations if that's what you want, just be aware that expert photographers and printmakers embrace and take full advantage of a number of manipulation techniques as a matter of course; not because they are trying to save "poor" negatives, but because they expand their creative possibilities and extend the limits of the medium.

Best,

Doremus

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No Sir. Not missing point, chosen.

Excuse me Doremus Scudder

There are lots of basic (others not so much) technics, inside as well as outside the print process, but all of them are optional, I insist and sorry to emphasized OPTIONAL. I am not avoiding, nor refusing, because Is not obligatory, is it? (I cannot believe that such a simple word in capital letters does not makes sense to you, must be a joke). One painter can use a simple set of pencils, and can also decide to tear up his/her canvas and start again.

If you get better prints, if your local contrast is better that way, (good for you) Good to know! And also is good to know what others "experts" EMBRACE (at last, free to choose!) but I am more interested in what they see rather than what they use. Anyway, Thanks for the advise.

Let me add, that I have worked 16 years in an Advertising and Media Center Agency as Art Director (never liked those words, together or separately) and during those years I used (obligue/exonerated) all kind of photographic (film/d.g.t.l) manipulation. I know first hand the media, and pretty well the creative/destructive possibilities part. Lots of learning, both ways.

All the Best, to you

Bill Burk said:

... which gives you an idea where all possible combinations of exposure and development will arrive on film density...

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Excuse me Bill Burk, the combinations are better reflected in the "Nine states of the Negative"

Bill Burk said:

The film doesn't change its speed, it's still 100... but what changes is the ...

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Latitude

LAG said:

Excuse me Bill Burk, the combinations are better reflected in the "Nine states of the Negative"

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The ring-around is a valuable exercise to illustrate examples of what will happen if you go different directions in developing and exposing, absolutely worthwhile. I know Bob Carnie occasionally does that.

But I get closer to seeing all that is possible when I look at a family of curves like I presented... I'd be happy to spend time exploring this with you if you like. I think you might enjoy it.

LAG said:

Latitude

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Yes latitude is greater with less development, but it is much more than that, I think you'll agree with my examples...

For example even if you don't change development time, you get more latitude when the light is flatter. This will happen on a foggy day (I live near the California coast so I have some experience with that.), dusk, or in a studio when you deliberately make the subject illumination flatter with fill light.

Excuse me Bill

I was trying to say that the presented family curve is “Your” playground, but not “The” playground, while the (years-ago) ring-around is a wider and complete starting point, to my way of thinking of course. I was not trying to compare both test (bracketing exp/dev), but trying to make you see that I believe that “those combinations” in your examples can not covered the “all” thing. In conclusion (my conclusion) that curve is not valid (for me, I can't vouch for the rest) as a reference.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your tests! I’ll be glad to hear and learn more from you, no doubt about it! Much more if you say it could be enjoyable ...

I’m sorry I was very concise in my post to you. It takes me a lot of time to write in another language (it means to me a great effort - even more when writing down out of a desktop –) and same thing happens with the reading as well, sometimes it’s very hard to find out some expressions when R/W. (so you all may think “that’s your problem!”, right!), and the previous answer took me too long, for which I apologize for any inconvenience to you.

Regards

Bill - I have stopped doing ring arounds as I have reached level 13 enlightenment .

I encourage all grasshoppers to give a bw and colour ring around a go.

very good thread, i find. no fouls and very informative
thanks to you all!

Easy answer to the OP is that lack of shadow detail is always more acceptable than lack of highlight detail. There are shadows that we can't see into, but if you have a white blob in your picture our eye is drawn to it.

I think I know what the OP is getting at but perhaps its more about compressing the midtones than highlights and shadow. I have some of my negatives I am printing at the moment, unfortunately they were massively overdeveloped by a lab and are requiring grade 1 or less to get most of it onto the paper. All the cloud detail is still in there despite the neg looking really dark but the details that use a lot of midtones definitely lack bite to my eyes, but then again grade 0 or 00 is pretty extreme surely and wouldn't be normal I guess. All my own developed negatives are printing OK at between 2 and 3. Long print times at nigh on full yellow on the enlarger is a bit of a pain. One doesn't have to print like that though, maybe I am going on the wrong path where I am trying to get a good base print then use dodging/burning to emphasise/de-emphasise elements of the picture for artistic effect rather than printing at a more normal grade and using the dodging/burning to bring them back into visual range? Maybe this is the issue the OP is grappling with? Its effecting me but as I said earlier I wouldn't ever set out to create a negative that wants an extreme print grade anyway.