Eee Gads! My new enlarger leaks light...

[Dave Langendonk]

Yes Dave. Thank-you for repeating yourself.

You're welcome

Seriously though, my intent was not to start an online volley back and forth. John however, spends a fair bit of time going over this issue in his B&W workshop for a reason. He has done extensive testing and can show the difference in actual prints with both this and bad safelights. It's not just opinion, it's backed up with testing and facts by one of the best B&W printers in the business.

[WayneStevenson]

I know Dave. I do trust John has found issue with them. And we can all agree that any stray light will have some effect.

Other than that, all I can say is everyone can do their own testing based on the work they're doing and see if it is detrimental to the work. I know mine is not.

[cyrus]

I suppose the very reason that paper has a threshhold is why minor light leaks are not considered to be a problem by some printers: the amount of the leaked light is not enough to reach threshhold, and therefore any effect on the paper is deemed to be negligible.

However, in my HUMBLE OPINION since the effect of light exposure is cumulative, any effort to reduce stray light is better than none. After all, we're not talking about wildly expensive efforts here to block light, just a simple cover or skirt suffices, so why not attempt to block it?

PS: every enlarger I've ever owned or seen leaks light somewhere. And, I won't say that my darkroom as a whole is entirely light-tight either. Thus far I've addressed the major leaks and don't have much of a problem with the smaller leaks. But just to be safe, when I'm handling film, I use a very large changing tent even in my darkroom (especially since the flo lights in my room tend to occasionally flash for some unknown reason.)