RA4 Printing w/Selective Desat

bvy · Dec 14, 2015

I shot a frame yesterday that I think is going to have a very colorful distraction off to one side. The picture may require no attention and be fine as is (I haven't even seen it yet). But it got me to thinking -- could I at least desaturate such an area by dodging or burning with a color filter -- the idea being to bring it closer to gray. Has anyone tried this?

Wayne · Dec 14, 2015

I haven't tried it but I know it has been tried and it can be done.

antmar · Dec 15, 2015

I am developing C41 and printing RA4 for more than 5 years now so I am not very experienced but I am not a newbie either.
Unfortunately saturation and contrast is what I can't change while printing with RA4. Maybe later in the tray by using some chemistry by changing the Ph but even this is very difficult to do and more difficult (if not impossible) to do it selectively.
Anyway using my color enlarger and it's filters I can't change anything but the color shift. I will follow this thread with much interest, maybe someone more experienced than me will have more to say...

DREW WILEY · Dec 15, 2015

Getting selective control of that kind of thing in the darkroom ideally needs advanced unsharp masking skills.

Bob Carnie · Dec 15, 2015

When I first started printing in Wedding labs we always used colour filter dodging and burning techniques on a daily basis.

How else would the brides blue cast dress come back to the lovely white.

so yes you can use the filters all the time... one thing is too much and you will soften the area you are trying to correct.

I still work with colour enhancement today except I will paint with colour via PS.

DREW WILEY · Dec 15, 2015

Hmm. Most of that kind of thing I've seen involved pieces of cheap lighting 'gels' that might have been OK for deliberate soft wedding images,
but not for normal crisp subject matter. What I have sometimes done rather than masking is simply register a piece of frosted mylar above
the neg with an appropriate small amt of dye on it, much like we did with Creosin dye for black and white work.

Bob Carnie · Dec 15, 2015

We used filters made for this purpose, I am guessing they were Kodak. long time ago since I have done an optical enlarger colour print that needed colour work.

We also would change the colour balance for burning in areas as memory serves me.

DREW WILEY said:
Hmm. Most of that kind of thing I've seen involved pieces of cheap lighting 'gels' that might have been OK for deliberate soft wedding images,
but not for normal crisp subject matter. What I have sometimes done rather than masking is simply register a piece of frosted mylar above
the neg with an appropriate small amt of dye on it, much like we did with Creosin dye for black and white work.

DREW WILEY · Dec 15, 2015

True Wratten gels big enough to be practical would have cost a minor fortune. But I guess if someone very carefully handled them they might
last awhile before creases and fingerprints set in. Guess I'm just accustomed to masking tricks. Just finishing another precision 8x10 carrier.

Tom Taylor · Dec 15, 2015

You can change the color in a given area by doing two exposures. Draw and cut-out a mask shielding the two areas. Determine the correct exposure for area 1 with area 2 blocked-off, and the block area 1 and expose area 2. I once did that with an image of Horsetail Falls in Yosemite park. Shooting in the direction of the setting sun the sky came out a bland grey while the rock and fall were perfectly exposed. I wanted a nice blue sky and it was simply a matter of the shade of blue desired which I determined from a test strip with about 10 different shade of blue. Then I simply masked off one area while exposing the other. The trick is to feather in where the two exposures meet.

I got that idea from an employee of Industrial Light & Magic one Sunday in Marin.

Thomas

Thomas

DREW WILEY · Dec 15, 2015

Yeah. The trick is to feather in correctly. The difference with masking is that when ya got it, ya got it, and the next print will come out just the
same. And the illumination above the neg can be diffused in all kinds of manner with supplementary sheets of whatever. Better yet, do the exposure correctly in the first place. One more reason I only print my own work. All kinds of printing tricks can be enjoyable to learn; but in the long run, one tends to home in on the path of least resistance.

RA4 Printing w/Selective Desat

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