Pyro thread on LF forum & print manipulation

This quote was lifted from the recent thread about the use of PMK and Pyrocat. It was moved because I found it to be a sub-point which merits a bit of thought. I would like to thank Jim for his input on the issue and the following thought provoking statement.

"You will NEVER (reflect on this word) be able to standardize your film exposure and development procedures to the point where manipulations in printing will be unnecessary. You'll have a much easier time of it by just learning how to print well." Jim S.

Jim, I would disagree with this basic statement. The use of the term "NEVER" seems to imply that film development is not, and can not be accomplished to be, as important a part of a fine print making as is printing. I do not find the two to be mutually exclusive. In fact, I find the opposite to be true. Of the prints in my gallery, there are only a few which have needed any dodging, burning or grade shifts to print well (this is not to say that I am even capable of making a fine print). The most recent upload of the night watchman to my gallery is a case in point. Since I have not plotted the SBR numbers for stand development yet, I did have to alter and reduce the contrast for a decent print (too long in the soup in this case). If I am not able to get a good straight print on grade two paper, I figure the negative was just processed incorrectly.

Mr. Gadget, Jorge, Sandy, Donald, Mike Pry, Steve Shep. and others... Do you typically have to do a lot of print manipulation in order to get a decent result, or is it easier to get a fine print for you with the grade of your choice, the proper exposure, and subsequent development simply in the film? I know this is a highly subjective issue, because we all see and work differently, but I am curious about your input on this subject and the amount of work you find necessary for producing a good print. This question is geared more to a graded paper, which imposes more stringent limitations on contrast manipulation.

Thanks to any and all who will post to this subject. tim curry

Tim, my experience with pt/pd and film testing is that I wanted a method that allowed me to obtain the best possible negative in camera. Dodging and burning is not an option when you are using high UV lamps, or at least it is not something you want to do often, so I need to make all my exposure, contrast and development decisions when I take the shot. Typically 80% of my prints come out on the first try, while I might make a second or third prints these are mostly to change contrast and rarely do I do any further manipulation.

You would think my experience is atypical, but most of the people whom I have helped with the BTZS have written back to me telling me how much simpler their printing has become since they have adopted the system.

noseoil said:

"You will NEVER (reflect on this word) be able to standardize your film exposure and development procedures to the point where manipulations in printing will be unnecessary. You'll have a much easier time of it by just learning how to print well." Jim S.

Click to expand...

I don’t profess to be in this league of printers. I had the pleasure of attending two of Alan Ross’ lectures at the LFVC conference. As mentioned in another thread, Alan is interviewed and has his portfolio in LensWork #65 Jul-Aug 2006. In the last 30 years Alan Ross has made 80,000 Ansel Adams Special Edition Prints for the Adams Family Foundation. In the lecture he said that Ansel Adams NEVER made a straight print. He then proceeded to compare straight prints and manipulated in both Ansel Adams’ and his own work and then show us how those changes were made. It was stunning.

My objective is not restart the much hashed argument about whether this is a good thing, but rather to point out that manipulation represents a whole school of thought and long time standard of what a good print should be. Certainly there are those that disagree, but who among us has sold 80,000 prints to people who agree with them?

John Powers

I think it was Imogene Cunningham who referred to printing as the most difficult aspect of photography. I recall back in my freshman year (This was way back before the word digital was a term you could look up in the dictionary), The first thing we were taufght was to establish a baseline printing exposure for our negatives. The excercise might have been a little primitive, but it got an important concept across. We were required to first establish film speed and then development for a zone V grey card density of .65 (I think it was .65). We then had to print the grey card negative to create a print that matched the actual grey card density. (Verified with a reflective densitomer.
The idea here was to teach the important concept of negative/print relationship. Until, I did this, I had no idea how much easier my printing life would get by paying attention to luminance ranges and negative exposure/development adjustment.

So I take Noseoil's comments to heart. It helps tremendously to pay attention to negative development/eposure, and standardize density ranges to print consistently.

However, I think I only got something like a B- on that freshman exercise. I'm sure I have created "straight" prints that have made it to an exhibition......but I can't recall any. Its a rare event for me. I agree wholeheartedly with the theory, but the images out there just don't seem to match up with my previsualization 100%. So I dodge and burn, stand on my head, tweak the developer, curse, turn up the stereo, and just keep working at it..... God, I love photography.

"Jim, I would disagree with this basic statement. The use of the term "NEVER" seems to imply that film development is not, and can not be accomplished to be, as important a part of a fine print making as is printing."

I don't see that implication in the statement to which you refer. I think he's just stating an obvious fact - no matter how perfect one's film exposure and processing might be, tones and tonal relationships in inegatives don't always print as we would like them to without some manipulation. Every film exposure/processing procedure ever invented gives each identical tone in the scene equal density in the negative, yet we often don't want tones having identical densities in the negative to appear as identical tones in the print. So even with the best processing methodology, we usually end up having to do at least some dodging, burning, flashing, or other manipulation to make tones and tonal relationships appear as we want them to appear in the print.

If you doubt that just look at Ansel Adams' discussion of his photographs in the book "Examples." There surely has never been a photographer more dedicated to perfection in film exposure and processing than Adams, yet the prints in that book are almost without exception manipulated to some extent, often greatly.

I wouldn't attempt to say which is "more" important, exposure and processing or print manipulation, and I don't see that Jim tried to do that either. Both are important. But Jim simply stated an obvious truth - no matter how good one's exposure and processing procedures might be, some print manipulation will usually be necessary (i.e. you will still need to learn to print).

Tim,

Interesting question. In my experience, I find that my need for print manipulation increases with my failures to properly expose and develop the film.

Lee Carmichael and I were talking about this same topic some time ago. He told me that he does not do a lot of manipulations in printing. Whereas, he observed, some photographers get very involved in manipulations.

To answer your question, I personally don't do a lot of manipulations. I know how to print...I have an enlarger set up for masking...But, honestly, I don't do it that often.

The other thing that I have observed, is that my obsession with achieving the absolute epitome of perfection in a print decreases with the number of negatives that I have to print. Since I committed to making five exposures a day (every day), I have a really heavy backlog (several hundred) of negatives that have never been printed.

noseoil said:

Jim, I would disagree with this basic statement. The use of the term "NEVER" seems to imply that film development is not, and can not be accomplished to be, as important a part of a fine print making as is printing.

Click to expand...

What I should NEVER do is engage in such hyperbole. Sorry. I hadn't had my coffee yet.

However, what I've come to realize is that of all the variables from exposure to finished print, the one that seems to matter least in my work is the choice of film developer. Overall negative density is a close second.

I once sent Michael Smith a couple of wafer thin (really, really thin) pyro negatives of the National Cathedral which I had not bothered to print because they were so weak to my eye. One was Bergger BPF 200 and the other was JandC Classic 200. We were trying to see if there was any difference. (To this day, BTW, I still don't know which negative is which.) Anyway, he printed one of them and sent them back to me. The print is absolutely gorgeous. Glows like radium. I was inspired to attempt to duplicate the master's results. The correct exposure under my 300 watt lamp turns out to be 2.25 seconds on grade 3 Azo.

At the other extreme, I've made beautiful prints from negatives which were so dense that they required 2 minutes on grade 2 and a water bath.

Once I settled on a good developer and learned how to use it my photographic vision improved tremendously because I no longer worried while under the darkcloth about anything other than what I was seeing on the groundglass. I know that if I'm even close with film development I can extract the print I want from the negative. This is a very liberating experience for me.

Of course none of this applies to platinum/palladium, carbon or albumen POP printing. This is also not to say that I don't strive for perfection when developing film. Good negatives make for easier printing, but if the information is there I'll take a mediocre negative of a well seen photograph over a technically perfect one with no vision any day.

I wouldn't call myself a printing expert, but I do pay a lot of attention to the way I expose and develop my film.
Everything gets so much easier with sheet film. I don't practice BTZS, but I do expose for adequate shadow detail and then develop by inspection to get the highlights where I want them. With roll film, the situation is different of course.
I find that printing is much easier and normally it takes about 3-5 sheets of paper to get a good work print going. The first three is according to the method Michael and Paula use. One too bright, one too dark, and eyeball it from there. Then adjust contrast. Then if needed do some dodging and burning.
I read a really interesting article about bleaching, written by Bruce Barnbaum, and he is to the extreme on the other end. He claims he only has two or three prints out of possibly 300 exhibition prints that he can print straight and be happy with.

Most of the time, I find that three sheets is enough even for a finished print. But only if I paid enough attention to the film exposure and development. If I print roll film, especially 35mm, it takes much longer and much more effort to get to a print that satisfies me.

- Thom