Orange Darkroom Walls, Why not?

[bob carnie]

Shouldn't be too much of a problem, You may find yourself playing a lot of Vanilla Fudge and having a strong desire to drop acid.
I paint just around the enlargers black , and for the rest of the wet areas the walls are white with prints up for inspiration.

[Kirk Gittings]

Shouldn't be too much of a problem, You may find yourself playing a lot of Vanilla Fudge and having a strong desire to drop acid.
I paint just around the enlargers black , and for the rest of the wet areas the walls are white with prints up for inspiration.

I do similar to Bob, all with a flat paint. The object is to kill unfiltered light escaping the enlarger (my Beseler 45s leak allot and it was bouncing off the back white walls and subtlety fogging my papers. It took me a long time to figure this out) while reflecting the good light from the safe light.

[Robert A. Zeichner]

If all you do is work under the safelight, it might be an okay idea, but the problem I see is that when you turn on the room lights to inspect your prints, if there is too much of a brightly colored background, your eyes will cause you to perceive the compliment of the orange (blue) when looking at something other than the walls and that may influence how much to tone the prints. I would stick with a light or medium grey and flat black immediately around the enlarger.

[John Cahill]

I do black and white printing only. My darkroom walls are kind of EK yellow.

John, Mount Vernon, Virginia USA

[aduncanson]

Thanks all for your inputs.
- Alan

[neil poulsen]

My darkroom walls are sort of a moderate to light yellow color.

Color aside, I decided that my darkroom was going to be a pleasent place to use. So, it's color coordinated. I rather like it.

For color work, this would be an issue. But, I'm not so sure for black and white. I process only black and white. I could use a dark color around my enlarger. But, I haven't yet done this.

I have an acquaintance who I hear has black in his darkroom, wears black cloths/apron when he prints, and he wears a black ski mask. Zero reflections back onto his prints. This is thought provoking, and I'm not going to suggest that this is unnecessary. His prints are beautiful.

But, it's not something that I have done.

[Bruce Barlow]

Give me nice, bright white. No problem with fogging, I masked light leaks in the LPL with duct tape. It's as cheerful a place as I can make it, given that it's dark in there.

[Vick Vickery]

Go with white...if your safelights are safe, white walls won't make them less safe but will let you see a little better than dark walls.

[Glenn Thoreson]

Here's a thought. I use a red safelight for everything. If I were to paint the walls green, they would be black under the safelight. Ain't that a depressing thought?

[Kirk Gittings]

Give me nice, bright white. No problem with fogging, I masked light leaks in the LPL with duct tape. It's as cheerful a place as I can make it, given that it's dark in there.

The darn quacking noise makes me crazy.