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I am thinking of buying a second set of Multigrade filters and using them as "dodging and burning tools " , to achieve local contrast control. What i don't know is if it has been done before . If the answer is yes , some guidelines would help to save time in mistakes... Thank you
Sure it already been done. It is a technic to print . You can print with a soft grade for the entire picture and for having soft white and then burn dark tone with high grade to make them more alive. Evrything is possible with multigrade.
I used to dodge with filters when colour printing, to correct local areas of bad colour - like blue shadows for example. You need to use only camera quality (CC) gel filters below the lens. Normal CP filters are only suitable for use above the negative.Also, filter dodging can only remove light, resulting in a lighter tone as well as a change of contrast or colour. You often need to burn the area back in as well.An alternative is to completely hold back the area where you want to change the contrast for most of the main exposure. Then dial in a different filtration, and expose only the area you previously held back. It's tricky, but like everything else, it comes with practise.
A neat technique! I use a #5 filter in many instances of dodging. It effectively raises highlights, while preserving blacks. Great for textured areas. For burning, I usually just change the filtration above.
I have a couple of sets of 6x6 MG filters that I have cut up into various dodging and burning tools; periodically I buy another set to make more tools for specific images (this is in addition to an intact set used in the filter drawer above the negative).
To suspend them over the negative during exposure, I slip the cut up filter shapes into a square 16x20" frame (Fred Picker used a hoop, but that's problematic in the corners) that is "strung" like a tennis racket--but with only two crosshairs of fishing line in each direction (two "vertically" and two "horizontally," viewed as the 16x20 frame is lying on top of the print).
Remember to keep the dodging tools moving during the exposure.
As the others said, it takes practice but much can be effected this way. I find it's most useful for preserving consistent contrast when dodging; nothing looks more careless than a lightened shadow area that has a much lower contrast than the rest of the picture. With MG paper and filters there's no excuse for that.
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Hold on for a second. My understanding of how multigrade filters function is that the yellow works on the emulsion layer to reduce contrast and the magenta will increase it. So how do you do a base exposure over the whole print with the yellow #1 and then increase local areas with a magenta #3? They should just cancel each other out.
See if this was true you could use cyan to get all the tone and all of the contrast!
Now if you exposed the top half of your print with grade 3 while completely blocking the botton half, you certainly could use a grade 1 on the botton during a second exposure - assuming that you then blocked the top. Tricky and why god has made photoshop.
See if this was true you could use cyan to get all the tone and all of the contrast!
This should have been: See if this was true you could use cyan to get all the tone and magenta to get all of the contrast!
Perhaps I'm missing something here since I use a variable contrast head rather than filters but why do you need to buy a second set of filters to do what I think you're talking about? The assumption is that you're going to burn or dodge with a filter other than the one used for the basic exposure, and you have those at hand with your basic set, so why do you need a second set?
Brian, I can't speak for Domenico but I have multiple sets because I cut the filters into strange little shapes for dodging and burning specific prints. One set, of course must be left intact for use in the filter drawer.
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"My understanding of how multigrade filters function is that the yellow works on the emulsion layer to reduce contrast and the magenta will increase it. So how do you do a base exposure over the whole print with the yellow #1 and then increase local areas with a magenta #3? They should just cancel each other out." - That's not quite the way that VC paper works David. The paper has two independent emulsions; a blue sensitive high-contrast layer; and a low contrast layer that's sensitive only to green light. The grades of VC filter control the proportion of blue and green light reaching the paper, and so control the overall contrast.Yellow filters reduces the amount of blue light, and magenta filters reduces the amount of green. The two work pretty much independently of each other, so you can, say, lessen the exposure to part of the low contrast layer, and make that part of the print higher in contrast, or vice versa.Of course, that part of the image then receives less overall exposure, and needs burning in a bit too. This is what makes VC filter dodging a bit tricky in practise, and why in some cases it's easier to hold back an entire area of the print, and then change the filtration on the enlarger head to burn it back in again.
Another approach is to split the entire exposure into two. A high contrast exposure through the #5 filter, and a low contrast #00 exposure. Each exposure can then be dodged and burned individually; using normal dodging tools and/or your bare hands.
In answer to the question "Why not use the spare filters from the MG filter set" - I can only repeat that these filters aren't meant to be used below the lens. Don't be tight! Get camera quality gels for the job. And be sure to keep your fingerprints off them.