How to separate shades of grey? [Archive] - Large Format Photography Forum

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plaubel

6-Dec-2016, 11:50

neil poulsen

6-Dec-2016, 12:29

You might try selenium toning your negative.:eek: It can pop the hightlights.

I had a low contrast scene of a fireplace in a concrete bunker-armament on the Oregon coast. I gave the negative an N+2 development, but this wasn't enough. There were white streaks in the fireplace and in the walls that were really neat.

After reading about John Sexton selenium toning his negatives and seeing examples, I gave it a try. It did indeed pop the highlights and turned this image into an excellent photograph.

Another possibility is using a dilute, potassium ferricyanide bleach solution on the highlights of interest. (See in Ansel Adams books on clearing whites.) Of course, this stuff is deadly.

plaubel

6-Dec-2016, 12:44

Neil,

I never heard about this, thanks for that; I only know about Borax in the negative step for giving more shadow details, as described by Andreas Weidner - but I never tried this myself.

Ok, in general selenium seems worth a try, but - the misty background nearly have had the same tone as the greywhite wood, so I expect no advantages in this case.
After "popping" the everall highligths, my fear is that I only will get a brighter print with the same graduation :-)

Drew Wiley

6-Dec-2016, 12:47

Longer (plus) film development, with a harder paper grade. These are the easy answers. What I like to do is attach a low-contrast full-range unsharp mask, which
actually decreases contrast overall; but then I'll VC print right thru a deep blue 47 filter for high contrast, and this will accentuate all the subtle microtonality in the
highlights impossible to retrieve by conventional methods.

6-Dec-2016, 12:49

Thin dof to remove the background detail.

Appropriate and show the low contrast subdued minimalist mood rather than try to make it something different. You just won't have many shades of grey that way, but simple can be good.

plaubel

6-Dec-2016, 13:30

JP, DOF is a good idea, and I often use it for separating, but let me try to describe the yesterday's scene more detailed:
the background has already been unsharp depending on the fog; but the weather was misty,foggy, so the wood in front came a bit unclear, too. A totally tone in tone, not so bad, yes, but
I really wanted to separate the back-and foreground with different tonalities a bit.

I have had some bad luck - there has been a little hole in the sky, which brought sensational whites and some glow to a handful of trees, a kind of spotlight - but totally out of my frame.
But this bright light gave me a good idea of white trees in front of a darker background, but at this moment I really missed the right "tools", and I thought about my possibilities in the darkroom, but haven't seen much....

Drew, masking sounds very special to me, I haven't any experience with this technique.
Maybe I have to learn a bit more next time?
Your description sounds good, really !

What's about the good old orthochromatic film, which normally separates tones in a good way?
Thisadays I use the actual charge of "Ortho 25" from Maco, which comes via Impex if I'm right.
Does the good separation of tones work with brighter greytones, too?

Drew Wiley

6-Dec-2016, 13:56

Ortho film doesn't do anything you can't do with a contrast filter over pan film. I didn't mention this because you stated that the scene was misty. But IF the sun
had been out, then all the tiny micro-shadows in the snow and frost would of course be blue, under a blue sky. So these shadows themselves can be darkened using typical yellow or orange or red filters which progressively darken blue, and hence help bring out fine gradations of contrast. A deep green filter will also work to attenuate blue light.

plaubel

6-Dec-2016, 14:14

Yes, foggy weather, obvisiously no advantages through the sensibilisation of ortho film. Just a spontaneus idea.. thanks, Drew.

Today I prepared my bag for the next chance of identical scenes; I filled in an adapter and a set of gradual NDs, this seems to become the easiest solution.
The other idea ist to bring in a blue coloured filter; this one could intensify the fog in the background and may give a better separation of the scene, like JP mentioned, but in an other way..

mdarnton

6-Dec-2016, 17:49

I used to be a news photographer in a place where it started snowing in October and didn't stop until April. It was a beautiful place, and the snow drifted and made the possibility of great photos, but the sun never came out. Potassium ferricyanide was my friend! You can print a bit dark, then after fixing make a weak solution and bring the print back and forth between the ferricyanide and fix, repeatedly, until you get what you want, but that doesn't work as well as going after the highlights individually with ferricyanide/fix mix in a 35mm film can, using a q-tip, so you can selectively pop out what you want, and leave the rest as it is. That's what I usually did.

I liked the general look so much that I still do much of my digital printing that way by making highlight selections and running a small amount contrast/darkness to snap them up.

6-Dec-2016, 20:01

Let's see a failed photo if you don't mind.

plaubel

6-Dec-2016, 23:20

Jp, I knew that there could be a great scale of possibilities, especially with darkroom work, but I haven't had the right idea and I didn't make a photo this day - I wish I made one.

Michael, in saying Potassium ferrycyanide, did you mean the Farmer's weaking solution ?
I have had that in my mind, but I have only little experiences with Farmer's, except with the Q-tip technique.
Now I really miss a negative of this scene for trying out some things, but I'm sure that this special weather situation will come back, because it's often misty and foggy here.

Doremus Scudder

7-Dec-2016, 03:39

Basic sensitometry: Increasing development increases the contrast gradient on the negative and separates the grey tones more.

If you haven't tried plus development for scenes like this, then you're missing the low-hanging fruit. Longer development plus a higher paper grade is the next step. After you've tried all that, you can explore (in order of difficulty) dodging/burning, selenium intensification (really easy and gives +1/2 -1 Zone more contrast), bleaching with ferricyanide to bring up the whites, bleach-redevelopment in a staining developer to increase contrast, masking, etc., etc.

Really, I don't see why you state that "Changing exposure and development times wouldn't spread the grey tones, in my opinion..." That's the most basic way to increase separation...

Best,

Doremus

IanG

7-Dec-2016, 05:15

Having made a quite a few images on foggy, misty, days I've had this dilemma a few times. The logic is to increase development and if necessary cut exposure slightly to boost contrast however I found that killed the atmosphere I wanted to capture. So now I meter and process as normal, and the negatives print easily with plenty of detail.

http://lostlabours.co.uk/portfolios/portfolio_images/bluehills01_mt.jpg

http://lostlabours.co.uk/portfolios/portfolio_images/bluehills02mt.jpg

Ian

plaubel

7-Dec-2016, 05:35

Thanks, Doremus,

sorry for my confusion.
Bleach-redevelopment in a staining developer to increase contrast is knew to me.
After practicing black and white photography the recent 5 years, I have further to learn a lot, and from time to time I get some difficulties, like in this example.
Every suggestion will help.

Really, I don't see why you state that "Changing exposure and development times wouldn't spread the grey tones, in my opinion..." That's the most basic way to increase separation...

Let's say, the snowy wood comes in Zone VII, but the background comes in Zone VII, too - I can't see the advantage of basic sensitometry here.
Maybe I'm wrong, so my initial question could bring some missing informations to me.

In my understanding, I could shorten the exposure time, and this would give me a total Zone VI; I could extend the development, and this would give me Zone VIII.
But I wanted to spread the tones from this snowy, grey wood and the grey background ; I didn't want to increase the dark sides of the wood in relation to the grey tones.

So in saying "I don't believe in success of dodging/burning" I probably failed more than in saying "basic sensitometry will not help" ?

N Dhananjay

7-Dec-2016, 05:43

As already explained, underexpose a bit and overdevelop a lot - basically, if the contrast is as low as you say, you would like to develop to maximum gamma i.e., greatest contrast without fogging the film and then print on the hardest grade paper you have. Selenium toning the neg can add a wee bit. You can try masking techniques but most masking techniques rely upon the density differences in the negative and if there isn't much there to begin with, these techniques may not help you too much. I understand that many modern emulsions do not give you as much ability to push process, although TMax 400 was/is a notable exception.

At the end of the day, if there isn't much out there, there isn't much you can get on the negative - you are working with a physical medium. Extremely low contrast scenes can be difficult to work with. Our eye-brain system tricks us into seeing greater contrast in the world than there really is - the neural connections have many inhibitory characteristics designed to extract contour lines - in other words, our minds make up a lot of stuff to make us 'see' things that are not really there, such as edge effects.

Some other thoughts for consideration. 1) Have you considered color? Color carries information separate from luminance. 2) Rethink the visualization of the scene so that you have a greater range of greys to work with. Fog can be a tricky devil because everything in the middle distance and beyond (which can be much of the picture plane) goes to a uniform shade of grey. The only way to not make it look like a fogged piece of paper (there is a reason we call it fog) is to have a strong visualization - often, some element in the foreground such as a tree or rock that retains local contrast and provides a counterpoint to the uniform grey everywhere is necessary to make the image work. 3) Can you adjust the lighting to increase local contrast - maybe reflectors or flash? 4) Enjoy the experience and forego the photograph - photography is a physical medium and can only do so much. Not every experience can/must be recorded. I don't mean that in a smart-aleck way. Cultivating this attitude freed me up quite a bit - I did not feel compelled to record everything and berate myself when I could not. More to the point, it has made me more present to the act of photography - if it works as a photograph, I make a photograph. Otherwise, I am happy to enjoy the experience and let the photograph go, knowing there will be other good photographs to be made. Some years back, I wanted to work on snow and ice in the winter months. The challenge was that on cloudy days (of which there were many), there would be no local contrast in the snow - the print would either have blank white areas or dingy grey areas. Snow (to look like snow) requires those specular points of reflection in areas of just off-white. It took me a long time to realize that I was seeing things that film could not see. That realization made me more productive because I could now look for other visualizations or other subjects and I started making photographs and having experiences again - those other things had been around me all the time but I didn't see them because of my tunnel vision. Trying to solve one problem, in some ways, blinded me to many other photographs I could have been making.

Cheers, DJ

plaubel

7-Dec-2016, 05:43

plaubel

7-Dec-2016, 06:29

DJ, thanks for your thoughts given in 4); you are absolutely right, and today I am the best example - too much thoughts, but not only one negative...

Considering colour concerning separation of informations ?
I will try this next time in an identical case, and then I will compare with b/W. Good idea !

I understand your ideas in point 2), and this describes the scene nearlly perfect - foreground retaining a little bit local contrast, background grey.

Let me add a didital picture from today, just out of my window.
158399

This scene often looks like a stage, with a lot of equipment in different areas; the lonely tree in front; behind the tree some bush, and in the third row a frame of trees.

The last day, every part has been as white as the heaven, but trees in the background have been invisible because of the fog.
Yes, my eyes said to me this all will come in Zone VII and would be boring a bit..

IanG

7-Dec-2016, 06:36

Ian, compared to my scene, you have a lot of contrast in your pictures :-)
I agree, manipulating a subtile scene will destroy the mood in some case.

At this point I feel real stupid; I didn't bring home only one negative, so I robbed myself the chance to improve my techniques...

I think mist and fog can be very deceptive and what appears to be a very low contrast scene photographs far better than you'd initially think. I can assure you those photos were made in very heavy sea mist and the apparent contrast was very low, my experience is film sees through a bit better than we do.

The beauty of using LF is you can process sheets individually, so shoot normally and one with extra development, you'd need to decide whether N+1 or N+2 development and the appropriate slight increase in effective EI.

I've found foggy, misty days are quite different to the very flat dull over cast skies with very low contrast light we sometimes get here in Europe.

Ian

IanG

7-Dec-2016, 06:56

Doremus Scudder

7-Dec-2016, 07:20

Plaubel,

What you need to realize is that no natural scene is ever just "Zone VII" or whatever. Any area you read with the meter contains lighter and darker areas. These are simply averaged together by the meter (however your meter wants to work and even with a 1° spot meter). Extending development will separate whatever is there more than if you develop "normally."

While we're discussing this, let's clear up the inherent misunderstanding regarding "expose less/develop more." Film speed does not change a whole lot when you change development time. You might get a 1/3-stop difference or a tiny bit more across a large range of film development times. What does change is where the most-dense areas of the negative end up. So, if like me, you meter a shadow value to determine exposure, and then see what the highlights in the scene are like to determine development time, you don't change the exposure by much, if at all. I support N-1 with an extra 1/3 stop and N-2 with 2/3 stop. N+1 gets 1/3-stop less and N+2, 2/3-stop less exposure.

However, if you are basing your exposure on an average reading or a highlight, you need to think more in terms of "reducing exposure" when planning on developing more. You need to be careful, however, that you don't end up underexposing shadows this way.

If you're using your in-camera meter to give you a basic exposure that you then adjust with exposure compensation depending on the particulars of the scene (as I would do when shooting 35mm), then, yes, by all means dial in less exposure for flat scenes that you plan on developing more. Just be aware that you aren't changing film speed appreciably, just estimating where the highlights will end up after development.

Specifics to your example. A "snowy wood" may have an average of Zone VII, but it contains a lot of different tonalities (snow, tree trunks, etc.). The Zone System doesn't really apply here unless you can meter discrete areas separately. For example, you might take a reading from a tree trunk and then one from the snow and see what the difference is. I find this approach difficult and less useful when shooting small roll-film formats; I prefer to evaluate the scene, apply some exposure compensation if needed and fire away. Even a fairly flat scene will usually print an a higher paper grade with standard development. In your case, if the scene is extremely flat, you should try extended development. Be aware, though, that there are scenes that just don't photograph so well. Learning to recognize these times when making a photograph just won't deliver what you want is part of the learning curve.

Best,

Doremus

bob carnie

7-Dec-2016, 07:26

When split grade printing I have found that with flat scenes like being discussed , I will increase my starting filter in grade to get more separation in the mid tones and will really take advantage of the 5 filter to set a black point in the print. Usually this means at least two or three hits of the grade 5 filter .

I want a creamy soft impression I will back off on the grade 5, Snow and mist seem to cause havoc for photographers. I am not really a camera man like some of the above and others I know, but I like the approach of determining a base exposure and develop to taste.

xkaes

7-Dec-2016, 08:57

Since you are using sheet film, you have a couple of options in B&W or color.

First (simplest) -- expose and develop as you normally would and then use a higher contrast paper or paper exposure/processing (expose the paper less and develop it longer). How much higher depends on the scene. Take a few shots of the scene at the same exposure.

Second (Ansel Adams approach) -- expose the film less and develop longer. How much of each depends on the scene. Take a few shots of the scene at various exposures (bracket) and develop each one at a time until you get one that looks good or gets what you want with a densitometer/meter. Then you can always take the negative and go back to the simpler approach above.

Corran

7-Dec-2016, 12:51

I just posted a few images in the Water's Edge and Tree thread. Yesterday I was in fog and very simply metered my FP4+ @ an EI of 200 and overdeveloped it. Now I knew that Acufine would hold the shadows well after spot-metering Zone II / III and then I developed for an additional 30% or so. If the negative was still a tad flat it's easy enough to drop the shadows a bit in Photoshop, which should be synonymous to doing a split-filter darkroom print (at least, that's how I do it, but I'm not a pro in the darkroom).

Your personal EI and metering techniques should guide you here based on experience. I would not have shot at 200 if using Rodinal, for example, and spot-metering gave me more confidence in where to put things compared to incidence.

7-Dec-2016, 15:39

https://flic.kr/p/qK3Vzp

is a 4x5 I shot a frozen lake in a snowstorm. It came out flatter than I wanted as I wanted the shapes to be strong like in a Siskind photo, but it wasn't happening as the darker ice was covered by fresh snow. It lacks scale, which is OK, but it also lacks strength, lacks subtlety, lacks mood, etc... Just all around lacking in favorable attributes. I will avoid such low contrast when I want strong shapes from natural objects... If I add a dark shape, it works.

https://flic.kr/p/qEPPPa (120 format)

If there is some low sun, anything is possible in snow with little more than texture and shadows or light.
(4x5)

https://flic.kr/p/j5qVst

https://flic.kr/p/j5qFwc

Drew Wiley

7-Dec-2016, 16:18

Blue filters are a complete opposite. You can get an idea by looking at 19th Century photos taken with blue-sensitive film rather than panchromatic. I sometimes
employ a deep blue filter to exaggerate the sense of distance in a scene or dramatically lessen shadow values in open sun. But at the same time, deep blue acts
like a ND filter in terms of requiring substantially longer exposure times, up to 4 stops. But in terms of that last bleaching suggestion, it all depends on the paper.
Some papers exhibit an unwarranted warm hue shift when bleaching. But it doesn't take much to open up sparkle in the highest values, so conservative usage can
indeed salvage some subjects. Did it last weekend myself.

Steve Sherman

7-Dec-2016, 18:07

Yesterday I have had a real challenge.

Misty weather, frosty temperatures, and together this gave nice ice crystals, which looked like snow on the trees and the leaves.

But the whole scene has been more grey than white, and I haven't had a good idea for separating the misty background to the trees in the foreground (background more dark, front more bright):

- Polarization filter - no function without blue skies, I believe..
- Colour filters? Grey seems not to be a complementary colour of another colour..
- Changing exposure and development times wouldn't spread the grey tones, in my opinion..
- Darkroom action with Multigrade, dodging, burning?
If the whole scene contains nearly one or two shades of grey, would this really help? I don't think so..

If I'm wrong, please tell me, but I only can see the gradual ND filter as a solution in this situation, and maybe the blue filter for giving the mist in the background some more presence ...

Thanks for your suggestions,
Ritchie

Two ways come to mind on how to separate mid tone and highlight contrast to a greater degree. First, the agitation scheme used to process the film can have an effect on the mid tone contrast. This goes beyond just increasing processing time to increase the contrast index of the film with respect to original scene contrast. Depending on what extremes you are willing to go when processing the film for extended time with very minimal agitation one can actually alter the straight line relationship of the film when compared to traditional processing techniques. There is no other technique known to "organically" alter how steep and abrupt tonalities rise out of the Toe. The Mid Tone contrast can be significantly enhanced with Minimally Agitated negatives, Pyro based developers work best, particularly within the PyroCat family of developers.

Second, Split Contrast printers will suggest diminishing the amount of Green light used and increasing the amount of Blue light used at least in the areas that you most want to enhance mid tone contrast. There is another technique that was used in the Graded paper days but due to Multi Contrast enlarging papers and their flexibility is rarely used any longer by elite printers. I use only 0 and 5 filtration with idea of reducing the amount of Green light necessary to affect highlight tonality. I continue to Flash certain areas of the print with a Green gel to bring the paper to just below the threshold of creating a grey tone by itself. What this Flashing technique does is presensitize the Green layer of the MC paper so the amount of actual soft contrast exposure given "through the negative" can be diminished. Typically my negatives require about 6 secs. of Green filtration and 12 - 15 secs. of Blue filtration. With the Green Gel Flashing technique I can reduce my Soft (Green) exposure projected through the negative to 4.5 seconds and sometimes even 4 secs. That's nearly a 30 % reduction in the amount of what I call Contrast Killing Green Light needed to set highlight tonalities.

Cheers !

Willie

7-Dec-2016, 18:44

What film are you using? Some separate middle grey tones better than others.

You are being told to underexpose a bit and over develop a fair amount. That does work

I have had better luck exposing with the low tones at zone V or even VI and then do plus development to gain more separation in the higher values. (high values that are very close to the low) This puts the values higher and the developer is a bit more active with the higher values rather than the lower values in the film. Plus development pushes the high values a bit more than if they are mid tone and lower.

I tend to print with negatives a bit more dense than some may like but the separation in printing is worth it for me. Have found Pyrocat HD works beautifully for this in my darkroom and Ilford FP4+ gives me the tonal separation I like with foggy days and scenes with little contrast such as today with driving snow and dim light.

Printing on papers of higher than normal contrast also helps. This gives a good start to finesse with Ferricyanidee reducer as others have written about.

plaubel

8-Dec-2016, 02:38

Thanks to all for your great advices!
I am aware of some of them, but I miss the experience to handle all this techniques as required, so in the darkroom I really need more practice.
Knowing about things, and being able to use them well are different shoes..

Doremus, thanks again for your detailed answer.
I haven't learned another metering than spot metering, and I know some of the disadavantages; but in general, spotmetering works fine to me.

I am really no master of excellent negatives, but spotmetering compared with spreading or reducing contrast via development and shifting exposure time a bit mostly works, too.

I have learned some lessons while regarding orthochromatic film developing in a tray, which gave me an idea whow development works - but of course I have to care more about how my film will handle things. Here I have been too lazy.

It seems that sometimes I get problems if real shadows are missing in the scene; and in this described case, I didn't found an answer for spreading the bright grey in grey scene.
Holding the background with a gradual ND wasn't possible to me this day.

Willie, after the sadly loss of "my" Rollei Retro 100 Tonal (orthopanchromatic like Acros) I try to work with Fomapan 100 in 4x5", and sometimes I throw in an Ortho 25, but it feels that the new charges do not work as fine as older Ortho 25 film.
For my bigger negatives (12x16" ) I exclusively use some Xray film.
Xtol and Rodinal are my favourite developers.

Steve, I started the minimal agitation development the recent time , and here you are a great guide to me.
Collecting experience will take some time, but what I have seen the first times has made me lucky. My Fomapan came out good enough to continue the theme.

I believe that Rodinal historically is a good developer for, in my case, semi stand development. Staining Pyro may come later in play, but first I will continue with Rodinal.

Preflashing I have learned from Andreas Weidner's book, but I didn't use it , and I forgot it.
Thanks for remembering this technique.

Best,
Ritchie

Doremus Scudder

8-Dec-2016, 03:50

Thanks to all for your great advices! ... Doremus, thanks again for your detailed answer.
I haven't learned another metering than spot metering, and I know some of the disadvantages; but in general, spotmetering works fine to me. I am really no master of excellent negatives, but spotmetering compared with spreading or reducing contrast via development and shifting exposure time a bit mostly works, too. ...

It seems that sometimes I get problems if real shadows are missing in the scene; and in this described case, I didn't found an answer for spreading the bright grey in grey scene. Holding the background with a gradual ND wasn't possible to me this day.

Best,
Ritchie

Ritchie,

First apologies for confusing you with another questioner I was responding to at the time and who was using roll-film. Hence my off-topic advice about metering with in-camera meter, etc. Of course, you use LF camera and film and a spot meter.

Therefore, let me clarify my advice a bit: The adage, "expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights" applies here.

Spotmeter for a low value that is important. This doesn't have to be a dark shadow (in snow scenes, I often place shadowed snow on Zone V...). Your important low value can be anywhere between Zone I and Zone V. Use this reading to determine your exposure. Don't change it after that, i.e., don't reduce the exposure if you are planning N+1 development.

Yes, If you are using a Zone V exposure to base your exposure on, extended development will raise it a bit on the negative from the standard target density for Zone V, but you can just print through that. What it does, however, is ensure that your low values are up in the straight-line portion of the negative and have maximum separation. The high values will also go a bit higher than standard target densities, but, again, you just print through them. The denser neg will have more separation because the information you want to print is higher on the curve.

Best,

Doremus

plaubel

8-Dec-2016, 06:43

Doremus, to me good informations never can be offtopic :-)
Again, thanks for helping me out with unknown, never practiced, and some forgotten informations.

Now I have to separate this thread in important and very important informations, and I have to think about what to do next with my negatives in the darkroom.
It is the time to go a step further.

Meanwhile I completed my bag with needed adapters, so I may use all my filters including the gradual ND again.

Drew, I love to try out a blue filter next time, to see how he works in practice, and I wish to compare with my Ortho 25.

Ritchie

Vaughn

8-Dec-2016, 21:47

Sometimes it helps to take stray advice from people who seem to know what they are talking about. And if one is lucky, the prints look great and all is well. I got lucky on some advice by Terry King, an English fellow, Royal Photo Society, lots of research into older processes, and workshops on the same. RIP.

For negs destined for platinum printing, where one usually gives extra development to increase contrast, he suggested FP4+ and Ilford PQ Universal Developer for excellent separation and expansion of the middle values. I love the results, but I have done no tests or major side-by-side comparisons. Everyone prints differently (formulas, paper, etc) so this combo may not being to everyone's tastes.