Hi

I've never seen a print that I've known to be printed using an unsharp-masked, let alone a comparable pair of masked and unmasked prints. On the other hand, people who do unsharp masking often rave about how wonderful it is, so I thought I would experiment.

I chose an image that had been developed in 510 pyro. I made a mask using 4x5 Ilford Ortho Plus film. I used a single piece of clear sheet film as a spacer. I exposed it under my enlarger after placing a sheet of drafting film on top of the image neg to diffuse the light. I developed it in Rodinal, experimenting until I got what I expected to be a "fairly strong" mask. On examining the mask with a loupe, I could see that it is definitely not sharp.

Then I made a print and compared it with a print made without using the mask. To get a comparable image using the mask, I had to increase the paper contrast from grade 2 to grade 3 1/2, and to increase the exposure by 2-3 stops. The print enlargement is a bit over two times. There's no hint of a registration problem.

After all that, it takes a keen eye to see any difference between the two prints. The masked print has just perceptible better local contrast, but the effect is very subtle. It's certainly not enough to justify the effort of making the mask.

So my question is, is that it? Am I missing something? Maybe the effect more pronounced with different sorts of subject?

Any advice would be much appreciated.