What control do you have while printing RA-4

jfdupuis · Mar 11, 2009

Hi,

Yesterday, I had a good time printing color negative for the first time. I have been able to achieve good results and now I would like to know more about the control you have on the picture beyond color balancing. Is the only way to control saturation is by changing the exposure ? How do you control contrast ? Do you dodge and/or burn ?

Thanks,

Jeff

PHOTOTONE · Mar 11, 2009

All your control is at the exposure stage. You can dodge and burn. You can increase or decrease exposure. You can selectively alter color balance with filters held between the enlarger lens and paper. (The overall color balance is achieved with the dichroic filters in the color head of your enlarger). The processing is fixed and is not altered. At one time Kodak and Fuji and Agfa offered a suite of papers from low contrast to high contrast. Not sure what is offered now by Kodak and Fuji, but I think a "lower" contrast and a "higher" contrast paper is still available. You also have additional controls by using various films in your camera, from Natural color to Vivid color. You can also "cross process" color slide film in color negative chemistry for a totally different look.

Photo Engineer · Mar 11, 2009

You can control contrast in the development step or by altering the process. This is detailed in several threads here so I won't repost at this time.

PE

jfdupuis · Mar 11, 2009

What would be a good reference on the techniques relevant to RA-4 printing ? Like a good book or a good web site ?

Bob-D659 · Mar 11, 2009

The best web site I've found was to read every thread in this forum on this web site, and make notes.

jfdupuis · Mar 11, 2009

I must agree that APUG is a great source of information. It would be great if there was a wikiAPUG where information could be summarize.

Domin · Mar 11, 2009

jfdupuis said:
I must agree that APUG is a great source of information. It would be great if there was a wikiAPUG where information could be summarize.

I've been thinking about a wiki too. More than once I searched quite long for the thread I've read because I couldn't get the search keywords right. And I'm sure there is still loads of knowledge I could use but I did not find it.

Neal · Mar 11, 2009

Hi Jeff,

Don't forget about masking for controlling contrast.

Neal Wydra

What control do you have while printing RA-4

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