Shaping the tone curve of a Rodinal Negative

BetterSense · Mar 25, 2010

Why would you over expose and underdevelop on a rainy and cloudy day, with presumably flat lighting? To me that would be counter productive.

I've stopped pushing my film on gloomy days and instead, started pulling it. I think that attempting to restore flat local contrast by increasing negative contrast through exposure and processing is a sucker's game because local contrast still won't be right but, the highlights and shadows won't fit on the paper either. In other words, if you could possibly increase the negative contrast enough to restore local contrast, its overall density range would be absurd. It seems to me that the only decent way to restore proper local contrast is on the paper. And doing so often spills the shadows and highlights off the paper. So counter-intuitively, I pull my film when it's gloomy out, knowing that I will be grabbing a #4 filter. Using the high paper grade restores a normal, crisp local contrast and the contracted negative will require minimal D&B.

Thomas Bertilsson · Mar 25, 2010

Well, you do what works for you. The idea with shaping the contrast curve of your negative is because you already have your paper figured out when you develop your negative. You target the paper and what it's capable of, and you know this prior to creating your negative.
I have not done all the curves and step wedge analysis that others have, but my method is the same. Most of my negatives print with ease on Grade 2 paper or filtration, and very little dodging and burning is necessary, because I have excellent contrast and separation in the mid-tones, and the shadows and highlights naturally fall where they need to be.
To each their own.

clayne · Mar 25, 2010

I know it's obvious - but one doesn't have to use the same paper for every negative as well.

Thomas Bertilsson · Mar 25, 2010

clayne said:
I know it's obvious - but one doesn't have to use the same paper for every negative as well.

Nobody forces you to, no.

In my case I use one and a half papers. One gets 90% of all negs, and then I have a second paper that I like to use for a particular project.

clayne · Mar 25, 2010

I'm just saying - different papers with different curves for different negatives with different curves. There's no way you'll successfully shoehorn everything onto a single paper - and why would we want to?

Thomas Bertilsson · Mar 25, 2010

Well, it works for me is all I can say. When people view my prints, print quality is certainly not something they complain about. The actual subject matter and photograph is naturally not to everybody's liking.

I could easily print every negative I have on Ilford MGIV matte and be happy with it. I don't find that switching to other papers help me in any way. And I have tried.

clayne · Mar 25, 2010

Thomas, do you not have shots with certain subjects and scenes that have the majority of exposure biased towards shoulder or toe? Not everything can be middle of the road, nor is everything naturally the same contrast or could be made that way. If you had a low key subject you wouldn't necessarily choose the same paper as a high key subject, right? Anyways a lot of styles of photography do not even allow liberty of choosing a well thought out exposure for the scene - many are just "good enough." I can't target a given paper by default. I can only do things to increase my options.

Willie Jan · Mar 26, 2010

Thomas Bertilsson said:
So how will over-exposing help, then?
What you did was to move the tonal scale farther up the curve, and since the windows needed burning to reveal detail, your highlights got too far up the curve, into the 'difficult to print' territory.

Either you exposed too much, or you didn't adjust your development time enough. Or both.

It's a good thing you exposed two sheets. You came away with a nice print that works.

I still have a neg from this situation. So I can do a 6 min test. But going to short get's other problems...
I mostly do my process of photographing/developing in my standard way. When the light is to bright, i come back another day. When it is to low, also. Adjusting things often make things worse. I am at a point where I am looking at the final print and don't care about the neg anymore. Because my print is what I put on the wall, not a negative. Besides that I use all kind of print papers from cyanotype to baryta and PE.

Don't loose to much time in getting the absolute perfect neg, because probably it's not printable. A friend of my says that we think that we can create a neg that can be printed without any work, but he says printing is where it starts. Every print needs adjustment to get it even better.

clayne · Mar 26, 2010

Willie Jan said:
Don't loose to much time in getting the absolute perfect neg, because probably it's not printable. A friend of my says that we think that we can create a neg that can be printed without any work, but he says printing is where it starts. Every print needs adjustment to get it even better.

True - but we've all had negs that just print themselves. I don't think there's a perfect negative the same as I don't think there's a perfect light or perfect print. Take what you can get sometimes.

Anon Ymous · Mar 26, 2010

Willie Jan said:
because I got 8 stops of light and my paper is capable of showing 4.5 stops

Wait, there are 2 different things:

1) You have a medium that records an image, the negative, which is very good at what it does.
2) Another medium that represents the information in the negative, the paper. This one will go from white to black within 4,5 stops of exposure. That doesn't mean you will only get 4,5 stops from the negative represented on the print.

The negative has rather low contrast, but the paper has much higher. The combination can show much more than 4,5 stops of the original scene. I've done some film testing and I can show 10 different tonal values of the original scene in a print, from absolute black, to absolute white (and a condenser enlarger). I can do this by overexposing by 1 stop and pull process accordingly. That's what I do in high contrast situations only, in cloudy days the manufacturer's recommendation is just fine. That said, it doesn't mean that the negative always prints itself, some d&b might be required to get the best result.

Now, in that specific case, if you only had 8 stops of subject brightness range, I don't think you needed to go that far. IMHO, you tried to solve a problem that didn't really exist.

Willie Jan · Mar 26, 2010

Anon Ymous said:
Wait, there are 2 different things:

1) You have a medium that records an image, the negative, which is very good at what it does.
2) Another medium that represents the information in the negative, the paper. This one will go from white to black within 4,5 stops of exposure. That doesn't mean you will only get 4,5 stops from the negative represented on the print.

The negative has rather low contrast, but the paper has much higher. The combination can show much more than 4,5 stops of the original scene. I've done some film testing and I can show 10 different tonal values of the original scene in a print, from absolute black, to absolute white (and a condenser enlarger). I can do this by overexposing by 1 stop and pull process accordingly. That's what I do in high contrast situations only, in cloudy days the manufacturer's recommendation is just fine. That said, it doesn't mean that the negative always prints itself, some d&b might be required to get the best result.

Now, in that specific case, if you only had 8 stops of subject brightness range, I don't think you needed to go that far. IMHO, you tried to solve a problem that didn't really exist.

You are right that 8 stops is printable, but shadows and/or highlights based on your measurements will lose details.
My basic idea is that i want to see in the photo what i saw at the scene.
This is only possible when i make studio stillife photos where i can set the light so that it is under 5 stops. This neg can be printed without any problems.

Thomas Bertilsson · Mar 26, 2010

Sure I do, and usually because I want them to print that way. But I find that I can print anything on Ilford MGIV to my satisfaction. Granted, like everybody else I do screw up sometimes and get negs I can't print.
But switching to other papers hasn't helped me. It has only confused me and prevented me from eking out the maximum for the paper at hand. I do, however, get the negative right almost every time, and yes, they do print very easily to completely satisfying densities, just as I imagined them when I clicked the shutter. I'm serious. I don't need another paper. The art comes from within and the heart you put into it. I never look to my materials to improve my photography or my prints. I always look to technique and skill and how I can improve. And it works just fine for me. I am often commended for the quality of my prints.

clayne said:
Thomas, do you not have shots with certain subjects and scenes that have the majority of exposure biased towards shoulder or toe?

Thomas Bertilsson · Mar 26, 2010

I am glad you have a solution. The finished picture is all that matters in the end. And if you are happy with it, then it's good enough.

Willie Jan said:
I still have a neg from this situation. So I can do a 6 min test. But going to short get's other problems...
I mostly do my process of photographing/developing in my standard way. When the light is to bright, i come back another day. When it is to low, also. Adjusting things often make things worse. I am at a point where I am looking at the final print and don't care about the neg anymore. Because my print is what I put on the wall, not a negative. Besides that I use all kind of print papers from cyanotype to baryta and PE.

Don't loose to much time in getting the absolute perfect neg, because probably it's not printable. A friend of my says that we think that we can create a neg that can be printed without any work, but he says printing is where it starts. Every print needs adjustment to get it even better.

Willie Jan · Mar 26, 2010

If I want to use less agitation to keep the highlights from blocking, I will have to develop longer, otherwise the shadow area will be less dense than when it was developed with normal agitation.

But if I develop longer, the highlights will get more dense also....

I think the main problem is the combination of them. The first (less agitation) is the solution but the second (longer) ruins your highlights again.

So eventually you will gain some, but is this worth the efford?
How much difference is there between the good and the bad.

Or do we add another variable, dilution. Higher dilution so that the highlight does not get enough fresh developer while the shadow is still working.
But this can result in streaking with stand development. Maybe first develop in low dilution, andd next in high. Or develop normally and after that put water in the tank so that the developer in the neg is still working until it is used up which would result in the shadow from working longer....
Wehave so many variables which can be changed and are interacting with each other, that it is complicated to finetune.

Anon Ymous · Mar 26, 2010

Willie Jan said:
You are right that 8 stops is printable, but shadows and/or highlights based on your measurements will lose details.
My basic idea is that i want to see in the photo what i saw at the scene.
This is only possible when i make studio stillife photos where i can set the light so that it is under 5 stops. This neg can be printed without any problems.

Of course, not all 10 tonal values will show the same level of detail. The two extreme values (0 & 9) are absolute black or white. Values 1 to 8 show some differentiation and you can spot some detail. Values 2 to 7 definitely show detail/textures. Now that's with only a straight print, without any d&b. Modest burning can reveal some more highlight detail. Mild selenium toning (intensification) can give a better look. IMHO, if you print to get the deepest black without any toning, you'll reach the shoulder of the paper and shadows might be less than ideal. You can print your shadows just a tad lighter and intensify them later with selenium. I feel it gives clearer shadows with more detail, without sacrificing deep blacks. Anyway, the bottomline is I wouldn't expect all the negatives to print themselves automagically. You need to put some effort to get to the best result. Exposing and developing according to the lighting conditions can only get you closer, almost there, not there.

Finally, I'd agree with Thomas that you don't need to switch from paper to paper. It's good to have some different papers that respond differently in various toners and give warmer/colder tones, but IMHO any good variable contrast paper can give fine results once you know how it behaves.

Thomas Bertilsson · Mar 26, 2010

Willie Jan, I make every effort to make the negatives perfect, but it's not always perfectly perfect. And that's fine. Some tweaking is to be expected in printing, I think.

But to me, the more effort I put into understanding my materials, the more I get out of them, and the printing and post production gets so much easier! Do I get a better print? Yes. I can make a print that's almost as good from a less pristine negative, but it will take longer, and I will use more paper to get there. To me that is a struggle and I feel like I am wasting paper because I didn't get the negative right.

So, to me it's worth the effort, but I don't have to put in a whole lot of effort either. All I do is adjust the agitation, and subsequently the development time, to get a nice negative. I don't do anything else to it. It's actually a pretty simple system based on fairly approximate metering and development adjustments.

Willie Jan · Mar 26, 2010

Thomas Bertilsson said:
Willie Jan, I make every effort to make the negatives perfect, but it's not always perfectly perfect. And that's fine. Some tweaking is to be expected in printing, I think.

But to me, the more effort I put into understanding my materials, the more I get out of them, and the printing and post production gets so much easier! Do I get a better print? Yes. I can make a print that's almost as good from a less pristine negative, but it will take longer, and I will use more paper to get there. To me that is a struggle and I feel like I am wasting paper because I didn't get the negative right.

So, to me it's worth the effort, but I don't have to put in a whole lot of effort either. All I do is adjust the agitation, and subsequently the development time, to get a nice negative. I don't do anything else to it. It's actually a pretty simple system based on fairly approximate metering and development adjustments.

If I look at my pictures i printed 3 years ago, I almost fall onto the ground from laughing. I also spent half a year getting into the material. I see it as improving 5% here, 5% there... eventually getting an much more improved print.

Thomas Bertilsson · Mar 26, 2010

Same here, Willie Jan. Same here. It would be terrible if we didn't constantly be seeking improvements. We would become stagnant.

I find that we agree on many things, and we want the same thing - beautiful prints. The road to the goal might be different, but in a way that's what makes it interesting!

Ray Rogers · Mar 26, 2010

DF,

In the graph at the top of this thread the red line data is roughly the same as that of the blue line data
between zones 4 and 6 but graphs higher than the blue for all other areas.

What other possbilities have you been able to acheive using your methods?

Can you independently control both ends at will?

What are the practical limits of your control methods?

Ray

baachitraka · Aug 18, 2011

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

The thread is some how related to this how-to, can anybody have a data to share.

Jerevan · Mar 10, 2012

I just wanted to dig up the corpse... I mean this thread and say that I have done some tests with the procedure described. And it works well.

It was also interesting to clearly see how my preferred EI would change between different lighting conditions. Easy enough to do the test and get a lot of information in return for the work done.

pierods · Nov 22, 2012

So, when going to this method of extended time and reduced agitation with a new film, how does one find the time necessary for the film to reach the zone 5 density? (or 6, I don't understand which is the center of the pivot)

Old-N-Feeble · Nov 22, 2012

Don't forget about chromium intensifier and selenium toning. Both add more density to the highlights than the shadows. If one underdevelops a bit and utilizes one of these techniques their negs will have straighter/longer H&D curves. I preferred selenium.

baachitraka · Jul 6, 2015

pierods said:
So, when going to this method of extended time and reduced agitation with a new film, how does one find the time necessary for the film to reach the zone 5 density? (or 6, I don't understand which is the center of the pivot)

Center of the pivot depends on the subject.

For landscape: Incident metering in open shade and subtract 1EV stop of exposure. Actually my yellow filter does this -1EV stop compensation and develop.

For development time like in this article I add 45% of time to the normal times available from manufacturers data sheet and follow similar agitation scheme.

I can confirm about the shadow detail and negatives print on Grade 2 with no or minimal effort.

For portrait: Almost similar but without filter.

jtk · Dec 4, 2017

Its 2017 and I'm about to go back to stand processing with Rodinal 1+100...on far-out-of-date Fujichrome...I have a bunch 120. Will be interesting to see how the results scan, assuming I get any image-formation at all

Shaping the tone curve of a Rodinal Negative

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