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Thread: "Creamy" look of split grade printing

  1. #11

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    Re: "Creamy" look of split grade printing

    only if you value anything Phil Davis has to say.

    lee\c

  2. #12

    Re: "Creamy" look of split grade printing

    Could you perhaps mean split toning?

  3. #13

    Re: "Creamy" look of split grade printing

    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Ellis
    " . . . not even to mention the ability to dodge or burn in with either filter . . . "

    How do you dodge with a filter?

    That aside, I thought Phil Davis effectively put to rest the idea that there was some special benefit to "split filter" printing (meaning the making of two separate exposures using two different filters, not the use of different filters to adjust local contrast) in his article that appeared years ago (1994 I believe) in Photo Techniques magazine.
    There is only a benefit when doing something, like dodging, during one of the two exposures, but not during the other. Just mixing two exposures brings no benefit.

  4. #14

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    Re: "Creamy" look of split grade printing

    For another view of the topic see:

    http://www.freelists.org/archives/pu.../msg00144.html

    May not be as simple as it seems.

  5. #15

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    Re: "Creamy" look of split grade printing

    Quote Originally Posted by Ralph W. Lambrecht
    This doesn't explain why it worked at his school and not at home. Why do you think the sequence of the exposures make a difference?
    Did you use the same water for the dev and everything? The alkalinity and/or mineral content can definitely affect print 'color'.

  6. #16

    Re: "Creamy" look of split grade printing

    You got the wrong guy. I didn't do it.

  7. #17

    Re: "Creamy" look of split grade printing

    Chuck

    This is only at the very extreme ends of contrast with very brief grade-5 exposures. This has little to do with the dicussion at hand.

    Don't let the extremes and exeptions mud the clarity of the simple explanation, which is good for 99% of the procedure. IMHO, that too often done by some individuals, who are far more interested in presenting themselves than solving someones problem. Your link is a good example.

  8. #18
    4x5 - no beard Patrik Roseen's Avatar
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    Re: "Creamy" look of split grade printing

    I am struggling to understand the logic in various posts here...Why do I get a feeling there are some who are very negative about split filtering...

    There seem to be three different reasons for split-filtering:
    1) A very simple procedure to overcome a problematic negative spanning over a too wide light range. So instead of dodging and burning, two filters are used to compress the highlights and still get a fair contrast in the shadows.

    2) Instead of finding the optimal graded filter or VC adjustements two filters are used as a 'cookbook like procedure'

    3) To dodge and burn different areas of a photograph thereby allowing different contrasts for different parts...and still not having to first find an optimal filter or VC-adjustment.

    Many people enjoy the cookbook-like-style which splitfiltering offers...and as with any recipy people can then go off an expirement in different fashions.
    But I sense there is something else lurking under the surface, or?

  9. #19

    Re: "Creamy" look of split grade printing

    Patrik Roseen wrote:

    There seem to be three different reasons for split-filtering:
    1) A very simple procedure to overcome a problematic negative spanning over a too wide light range. So instead of dodging and burning, two filters are used to compress the highlights and still get a fair contrast in the shadows.


    Works (without the contrast in the shadows) and is equal to other VC techniques, but the dodged and burned print will have more sparkle and contrast.


    2) Instead of finding the optimal graded filter or VC adjustements two filters are used as a 'cookbook like procedure'

    That's the same as above.


    3) To dodge and burn different areas of a photograph thereby allowing different contrasts for different parts...and still not having to first find an optimal filter or VC-adjustment.

    That really works well and can't be done otherwise. This is where split-grade printing shines.

  10. #20

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    Re: "Creamy" look of split grade printing

    Thanks for all the help. I have emailed my instructor to see if I was imagining things. No it wasn't lith printing -- which I have yet to play with.

    It wasn't so long ago, so the matter is pretty simple to remember. In fact I remember the print quite well -- breakwater at Coney Island shore; bits of rocks and pier pylons sticking out of the water.

    We exposed a print at 5, only long enough to get a hint of the deepest shadows.
    Then we exposed at 1.

    The end result differed from a "straight" print in two ways.

    First, I had been having a lot of trouble burning in a very irregular section of the straight print. Trying to burn this section in resulted in a "halo" effect on surrounding sections because I wasn't able to match the dodger shape to the image, and I tried so often that I ran out of cardboard paper to cut up to make dodgers. Anyway, using the split filter technique, this part came out fine on its own.

    Second, there was a slight hint of purplish color to the shadows -- the whites were sort of creamy looking, and the shadows had a purplish tint. It sorta looked like Selenium. We didnt tint anything in the class but I remarked that it has the same over all color scheme reminded me of a glass of rootbeer.

    The class was at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. Since I live nearby I don't think the ph of the water can differ so much. I have emailed my instructor to figure it out.

    In fact I remember asking him how the split filtering thing works to create that look. "Creamy" was his word for the effect, not mine. And he had been in the biz since when I was born.

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