Your Thoughts? 1st time trying split grade...

Negatives that are soft in contrast usually don't benefit much from split grade printing. It's best to dive right in with a high contrast filter and leave the low contrast ones in the drawer.
If necessary, you can use plain white light to 'black out' areas that you don't wish to reveal in your print.

It is also worth remembering that loss of shadow detail in a print is more acceptable to the human eye than loss of highlight detail.

Thats a good point.

cliveh said:

It is also worth remembering that loss of shadow detail in a print is more acceptable to the human eye than loss of highlight detail.

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cliveh said:

It is also worth remembering that loss of shadow detail in a print is more acceptable to the human eye than loss of highlight detail.

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Thanks for the reminder. I often obscure entire areas of a print in black, just because I feel the detail present in the negative doesn't add anything to the print.

Bruce Osgood said:

I would tend to disagree with this. Remember you are taking a white piece of paper and making it shades of gray to black, or thereabouts. Once you have set your dark's you cannot make them lighter, rather set your whites and darken them as needed. You cover white with black, you cannot cover black with white.

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Hi Bruce. Yes, I admit it does sound counter-intuitive to determine your hard exposure first but here I am talking exclusively about soft negatives. Once you've set your dark tones you can make them lighter by altering the exposure, just as you would with highlight exposure. This is where experience and 'expertise' comes into play and it's no harder than doing the G.00 exposure first. If I were printing a normal/hard neg then undoubtedly determing the highlight exposure first makes sense. I could print with a hard filter - as Thomas Bertillson says - and I often do, but I sometimes find it easier to nail that deepest shadow with the G.5 filter first with the added advantage that it shows me exactly where to print in with the G.00 filter. Perhaps it's not orthodox but it works for me and what the hell, if it gives you the result you want, why not try it. Regards, B.

ChristopherCoy said:

So you're saying to flip the process? Hard exposure first?

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Yes, but it's a method that really only lends itself to printing with soft negatives. You could just print with a single hard filter, but this requires that you find the correct hard filter to print with (is it G.3, G.4 or G.5?) and adjust exposure accordingly for each different filter until you find that perfect match.

Blighty said:

Once you've set your dark tones you can make them lighter by altering the exposure, just as you would with highlight exposure. This is where experience and 'expertise' comes into play and it's no harder than doing the G.00 exposure first..

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I don't understand what you mean by making set dark tones lighter by altering the exposure? Are you speaking of the second exposure at G.00 being altered? How do you lighten an exposure by adding to it? Or are you suggesting dodging the the first (G.5) exposure and making it lighter? I'm not trying to be PITA but I don't understand what you mean,

Bruce

A trick I used years ago when I was printing 0 and 5 is as follows.

If you want to create an interesting visual... get some black netting stockings, and try playing with images by using the black stocking under the lens for either the 0 or the 5 exposure.

one way you get sharp highlights with bleeding blacks... .think landscape smooth scene black fuzzy trees.
the other way you get sharp blacks and soft highlights...... think skin tone , eyes sharp


I will reverse my logic with filters and their order of importance depending on what the person wants in the print , not necessarily dictated by the negative.

A classic case is a High Contrast print like lets for argument sake say Bill Brant... I would start with a 4 or a 4 1/2 filter to set the image and maybe flash in with 00 to set some basic tone in the highlights .
Another case would be a Low Contrast print like lets for argument sake say Jock Sturges.... I would start with a 1/2 or 1 filter to set the lovely highlight tones and with the 5 filter, add an exposure until I see a defined black somewhere in the print and call it a day.

I believe too many people look at the negative and then determine what the print will look like.

I prefer to visualize what I want the print to look like and then with the tools available to me make it happen , no matter what the negative looks like.

I doubt there is very few negatives that cannot be tamed with a bit of effort and using biggest tool of all, one's brain.
:munch:

not to say present company are not using their brains, just sometimes its being used too much and not let the eyes tell you when its done.

Blighty said:

Yes, but it's a method that really only lends itself to printing with soft negatives. You could just print with a single hard filter, but this requires that you find the correct hard filter to print with (is it G.3, G.4 or G.5?) and adjust exposure accordingly for each different filter until you find that perfect match.

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Christopher - split grade is my default choice for silver printing. My negatives tend to vary quite a bit. When I'm shooting MF, I'm shooting with lith or silver in mind, and follow recommended developing times. If I'm taking my time and metering carefully, those negs can be quite uniform and easy to print, but if I'm shooting as fast and furious as a 50+ year old TLR can manage, I'm guessing the exposure. LF I shoot for alt printing. Those negs are routinely over-developed for greater contrast, and can be quite challenging if I decide to print silver.

These are my current practises. My collection of negs covers decades - many films, developers, techniques and mistakes. (There was a period when I was using a cheap and inaccurate thermometer - some of those negs are quite thin )

I discovered Les McLean and split grade printing here on APUG a number of years ago. I occasionally eyeball an unusually perfect neg, and slap a 2&1/2 filter in; but I find it easier to just start with split grade.

If I was only shooting for silver and had perfected the zone system years ago; if I was more hard science and less seat-of-the-pants; if my eyes didn't glaze over and my brain go on vacation when DlogE curves are mentioned; I probably wouldn't be so hooked on split grade printing.

Do what works for you. Have fun.

Bruce Osgood said:

I don't understand what you mean by making set dark tones lighter by altering the exposure? Are you speaking of the second exposure at G.00 being altered? How do you lighten an exposure by adding to it? Or are you suggesting dodging the the first (G.5) exposure and making it lighter? I'm not trying to be PITA but I don't understand what you mean,

Bruce

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Hi Bruce, you're certainly NOT being a PITA! I reckon I'm not explaining myself properly. You're right, laying down the G.5 exposure first followed by the G.00 exposure does make the dark tones a little darker but not as much as you would think, acting as it does primarily in the highlights. If you look at it the other way; when you determine the soft exposure first for the highlights, you do so knowing that the 2nd (hard) exposure will affect that tone a little bit, but not by much because it (the hard exposure) is acting mainly in the dark tones. As an example, let us say you determine a soft exposure of 10 seconds and that exposure gives you exactly the tone you want in the highlight(s). Next, on top of that soft exposure you determine the hard exposure to give you exactly the tonality you require in the dark tones. In doing so you might see some very slight darkening of those highlights because, as you rightly imply, adding exposure will make a print darker. So what do you do? You back off very slightly on that first soft exposure to compensate for the 2nd hard exposure. In exactly the same way, if I choose to figure the hard exposure first, I do so knowing that the subsequent soft exposure will have some small (but maybe noticeable) effect on those dark tones and compensate accordingly by backing off very slightly on the hard exposure. This is where one's experience comes into play. Remember, I'm simply trying to give a minimum exposure that renders the darkest part of the subject true black or just 'off' true black and then determining the correct soft exposure. It's the same process but the other way round and the whole point for my doing it this way is that I find it difficult to establish a soft exposure first when printing a very soft neg.

In my mind the ratio behind switching the order (starting first with the soft contrast filter with higher contrast negatives, but reversing the order with lower contrast negatives) is that the trickiest and most demanding part of the print is getting the contrast and detail right in the part of the range that is most difficult to reproduce accurately - the detailed highlights in the contrasty negative, and the textured shadows in the low contrast negative.

If you get the toughest stuff right, the rest comes relatively easily.

sly said:

If I was only shooting for silver and had perfected the zone system years ago; if I was more hard science and less seat-of-the-pants; if my eyes didn't glaze over and my brain go on vacation when DlogE curves are mentioned; I probably wouldn't be so hooked on split grade printing.

Do what works for you. Have fun.

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I loved this!!

Hello Blighty,

I understand what you are saying now, and I think you are right.

Thank you,

It may not make much sense, Michael. I'm sure my rebuttal won't either.

Split grade printing WORKS for me. I get a print I'm happier with, faster, using split grade. I know that my difficulty with science and math based explanations is a weakness. I might have achieved much higher facility and skill in the darkroom years ago, and now be one of the top photographers in the world, if my rooted-in-childhood math phobia hadn't been hampering me
I'm very appreciative and impressed by folks who grapple with these issues. There wouldn't have been photography, nor a century and a half of improvements and refinements, if there wasn't a large body of folks who understand and work on the science of light, chemicals, and darkroom magic.

I manage to have fun with photography, continue to improve my skills, and very slowly catch on to what makes the magic work, in spite of the fact that I've chosen the complicated way of doing something simple.

Don't confuse me with logic and thanks for all your input on the forum.

I've spent endless hours plotting densitometer strips when that kind of procedure was warranted.
But split printing could easily be taught to someone who never even heard of desitometry, the zone system, or paper grades. One obviously needs a reasonably exposed and dev negative to start with,
but that's a different aspect of the overall subject. And a simple demonstration is probably more valuable than a book. Like everything else, it just takes some practice until you're comfortable with
it. But in principle, it's awfully damn simple.

Michael R 1974 said:

. Here we had a case of a straight print that was too soft at grade 2. Assuming no local adjustments were needed, all I'm saying is perhaps the simplest approach would have been to try a higher number, instead of moving to a split exposure approach. I'm saying this because once Christopher went with split grade, that seems to have been when he started to have trouble figuring out what step to take next when the contrast still wasn't quite right.

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Honestly, if I wouldn't have gone with the split grade thing, my next step would have been to go DOWN a filter grade. I say this because to my knowledge, or according to the way I've taught myself, a grade 1 would have given me more detail in the shadows due to less contrast. This is exactly what I did with my post card exchange, and why some people complained that it lacked punch. I liked the hazy, less contrasty look of that printed card though so I left it.

In my mind, going from grade 2 to grade 3 just makes it a harder course of shadows to navigate through. I already had issues at grade 2, so making my shadows worse, or darker rather, didn't seem like an option. It never occurred to me that I could drop my exposure time. I remember on my first roll way back when, APUG told me that a 6-8 second exposure was too short, so now I always try to at least keep it in the teens. So I could have gone to grade 3 but shortened my exposure time, and then burned in other areas. That never even crossed my mind.

But Les' article made it way too obvious. It was like picking two items off of a store shelf. There they were, shadows and highlights, I just had to pick which ones I wanted.

Which is kinda how I look at it - split grade is like two products on a store shelf. All you have to do is walk in and grab them, put them together, and bake your cake. Whereas the single approach is like looking at a roadmap to find the bakery. You've got to have a starting point and then try to plot your route. I don't necessarily know how to get to the bakery, but I know exactly where to go to get flour and sugar. My recipe might not be the best, but at least I have the basic ingredients to play with and tweak.

Christopher:

You are right that Les McLean makes it simple. I learned his split-grade method from him several years ago. The bottom line is that it is a tool, or a method. Critics of split grade argue that it doesn’t do anything that can’t be done with a single exposure (not considering dodging and burning at different grades). And that is true.

However, that argument is true for the end product only, and doesn’t address that way to get there. Split-grade is a valuable tool if getting to the proper exposure and contrast in one exposure is alluding the printer. The route is different, even if the end is the same.

As for the exposure time in the teens, that recommendation is to allow enough time for dodging and burning; and for consistency. If your exposure times get shorter, that’s fine, all other factors being equal. You can always double the needed exposure simply by stopping the lens down one stop.

Enjoy. In time, as you become an experienced printer, much more of this will become easy. In the meantime, do what you have to do.

Cheers,

David

PS: I think you have moved from the DFW area. If you are ever back up here and want to come by, I can show you some more tricks.

ChristopherCoy said:

I say this because to my knowledge, or according to the way I've taught myself, a grade 1 would have given me more detail in the shadows due to less contrast.

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Hope I have not misunderstood you, but using a #1 filter to burn shadows will give you less detail in the shadows due to less contrast. But perhaps you just mispoke here, IDK.

Since contrast is the difference between the dark and light values, using the "highlight" printer, or a low filtration number, to burn a shadow will darken any lighter values that are present within the micro environment of the shadow that you are burning---this reduces contrast

Chuck.

Christopher:

It appears to me that you are struggling a bit with something that lots of beginning printers struggle with - the difference between the role played by adjustments to exposure and the role played by adjustments to contrast.

It is best (in my mind) to use adjustments to exposure to make sure the tones come out the way you want them to. And it is best (in my mind) to use adjustments to contrast to make sure the different details in the scene differentiate between themselves the way you want them to.

In most cases, a single contrast grade, and an exposure aimed at the mid tones, will get you there (or almost all the way there).

The special benefit (in my mind) of split grade printing is that it allows you to relatively easily fine tune those adjustments for the various sections of the print.

I'm probably struggling with WAY more than that Matt!

And Chuck it's highly possible that I did misspeak because I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.

ChristopherCoy said:

And Chuck it's highly possible that I did misspeak because I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.

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Some things just aren't intuitive to you yet, stick with it, it will be..............I suggest this as a starting point, I think it's a good reference.

Rafal Lukawiecki said:

Unfortunately, this can also lead to some odd behaviours at extreme low grades, such as 00. See Nicholas Lindan short paper: "The Workings of Variable Contrast Papers and Local Gamma". For that reason, split-grade technique can be a little easier to use with filters a little harder, such as 1 and 5, rather than 00 and 5. I believe that is what Bob Carnie practices. The effect will be the same, but the observed changes will seem more logical when using 1 rather than 00 for certain mid-tones.

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I believe Nichoas only found a significant flat spot in one paper type. I believe it was the warm tone.
Your logic is not correct. As soon as you add any magenta to the 00 you are no longer at 00, therefore the flat spot will not be evident. Using 1 instead of 00 to avoid the flat spot only makes sense if there is no magenta exposure.

I can think of two useful little exercises that used to be standard student tasks.

Firstly, print each of the two split exposures separately, make two prints in other words, to see what they are doing to the 'hard' and 'soft' emulsions.

Second, make a grid of small prints (of the same photo) varying horizontally and vertically by exposure and by contrast, for example vary the exposure by a half of a stop over a +/- two stop range (in total, quartering and quadrupling the time of your 'standard' exposure) and change filtration by grades (having started with a print that works well at about Gd.2 and with a broad range of tones). Glue these small prints to a piece of board, with the 'normal' print in the middle, and that will give you a much better feel of what the effects of adjustments will be.

ic-racer said:

I believe Nichoas only found a significant flat spot in one paper type. I believe it was the warm tone.

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I am not certain: on page 5 of Nicholas's paper he refers to both MGIV and Polymax. However, even though the last page of his paper specifically calls out MGIV MG RC, the gamma curves on page 6, generalised for 3-emulsion VC papers, show a double-dip in contrast when extreme 00 grade is used. I do not know if Nicholas intended this graph to be generalised, or how he has arrived at that model, but my experience, with MGIV WT, rather than MGIV MG RC, agrees with his findings, as it does with Bob's experience. All of that could be a coincidence, and I would welcome your more detailed analysis, very much.

ic-racer said:

Your logic is not correct. As soon as you add any magenta to the 00 you are no longer at 00, therefore the flat spot will not be evident. Using 1 instead of 00 to avoid the flat spot only makes sense if there is no magenta exposure.

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I appreciate, ic-racer, your challenging my thinking, however, as I fully agree with your point, and I think my earlier post did so too, I do not think there was an incorrect logic in my words. May I respectfully ask that you review my (there was a url link here which no longer exists), and if you have the time, also post #49 of this LFPF thread, in which I explained my thinking in more detail.

Indeed, I fully agree with you that once grade 1, or a higher filtration, in any colour system and by any means, split or not, has been applied, the curve straightens considerably, and this issue only affects the extreme grades of 00 and 0, and, as I mentioned in my earlier posts, not the final result that would have been achieved with an additional exposure—such as grade 5 added in a split-grade scenario. The point which I was trying to elaborate, perhaps ineffectively, was about a seemingly illogical progression of that problematic mid-tone, when it has been first laid using 00 alone, as observed by the worker, who later moves on to using a higher grade—for example: if you had printed a test sheet, as done in split-printing, using 00 alone, and another one, using grade 1, and if you happened to be lucky to have a picture rich in that problematic mid-tone, you would find that it did not differ, as you had expected, between sheet 00 and sheet 1, while the remainder of the print changed. In extreme, for a very soft, high-key print, it could be interpreted as the look that Bob has described.

Thank you, very much indeed, for helping me understand this issue in more detail, and I would be very grateful if you could let me know if you think my logic continues to disagree with yours, as I greatly appreciate your experience.

One of the first tests I make my associates here do is take a basically normal neg with a very known neutral grey area and make a print at a middle filter like a #2

Then spend an afternoon matching that print or more importantly making the known neutral grey area match with each filter, including the 1/2 grades.
from 00 to 5.

by doing this you get a practical laymans visual version rather than a scientifice plotted graph version of what each filter does.
You can also do this to to match a dichroic head to the Ilford filters if you have two types of enlargers at your disposal.

by doing this you will get a handle of density , and how it is affected by the filters.
Also you will actually see what each filter can add to the equation.

Immediately if you are using Ilford Warmtone you will see that if you are relying on the 00 or 0 filter for the highlights you are leaving a lot of wonderful tonality on the table.

Unfortunately I cannot write out exactly how it all comes together as each negative has its on lighting vocabulary that is critical to how you start and what filter to start with... Christopher .. you are getting a lot of good advice here from a lot of people , I think myself included.

Unfortunately with all good advice we are not in your darkroom while you are trying to figure it out so take a lot of all the advice with a grain of salt.
You need to figure it out yourself,,, lighting ratio,, development procedures for different lighting ratios, then a printing workflow that you repeat time after time.
If the print looks good , compared to what you see of other printers you respect , then its good.

For example.
If you gave the same negative to 10 different people responding here, and asked them to print it to their best ability's, you will find most likely 10 very different versions.. ALL GOOD, It would be up to you to then decide which version is the best... now try telling the others you think their prints are of less quality and a storm will brew.
At the first APUG conference we had a show of over 18 well know printmakers who presented their best work .. to most peoples surprise not one artists work stood out from the rest. We had AZO , PT PD , Carbon, Silver, Bromoils , Dag's, Lith Prints , InkJet, prints on the wall and this was an eye opener for me... I for one came away from that experience understanding a bit more about perceived quality..

Another way to look at his print quality thing is to visit a collector/archive that has world class prints from past masters and current workers.
Look at the work , rather than read about the work.. you may conclude that a lot of discussion is just bullshit.
Paul Paletti Gallery in Louisville Kentucky has a very lovely collection of current and past workers, just walking through his space is an eye opener because you will see original prints in such a variety that you cannot but think that a lot of what we write about the past workers is crap.

Why do I say this?? Amongst Paul's collection I still think the two best prints IMHO were one by Brett Weston ( pretty obvious choice) but the print
that moved me the most by leaps and bounds was a Gary Winogrand (World's Fair, New York 1964) Women sitting on park bench. Probably not printed by the photographer and really not a person you would consider able to make a great print.
My point is that once you get to a certain level with your printing , stop looking at your navel, graphs will not help you out, specialized timers will not help you out,
specialize developers will not help you out, and to the topic split printing will not help you out, as these are only tools,, great imagery will always trump technique.

so spend some time learning some basic principles, let your eyes be the boss, and have fun,