Painting an easel

[cyrus]

My Beard 4 blade easel is black. Would white be a better background color to compose before sliding in a sheet of photographic papere? Why was it painted black and why should I print it white with some white enamel spray paint? Glossy I suppose.

[IanG]

Every Beard I've seen or used has had a white baseboard, that's how they were normally sold.

Rather than painting I'd look for some white self adhesive vinyl, semi matt rather than gloss. You could spray paint again a semi matt finish if you can find it.

Ian

[Roger Thoms]

Why not just put a piece of paper in the easel and compose and focus on that.

Roger

[Jim Noel]

My Kostiner easel is black anodized intentionally. It is designed so that there is no chance of reflection back through the paper causing loss of sharpness, which I have seen happen. A piece of enlarging paper is placed in position for focusing.

[cyrus]

I used to use a Saunders V Track which had a yellow base so you didn't need to futz with a separate sheet of paper. I can see the point about reflection though. Love the Beard with the rising edge markers.

[frotog]

All my easels have been powder-coated black to prevent fogging from reflection through paper backing - a very real problem with ra4. Leave your beard alone man.

[Jim Jones]

Jim Noel is right. Focusing on an old scrap of enlarging paper reduces the slight focusing error that results from focusing on the easel, which is slightly lower than the surface of the paper.

[cyrus]

I usually take care of that error by sticking a piece of paper underneath the focusing scope permanently. I also use a piece of doublesided tape on the easel baseboard center to make sure the paper is held as flat as possible.