Contact printing: Practicing with RC paper, making final print with Fiber

[formanproject]

In the past when doing enlargements, I had to adjust the time the paper was exposed when using RC paper and Fiber paper.

I will be doing some 8x10 contact prints soon, and was wondering if the same principal applies. If so, do any of you have a general rule on how much to increase the paper's exposure when using say, Ilford Glossy RC paper and transitioning to Glossy FB paper?

FB paper is very expensive so I want to try to do most of my experimenting with RC paper before making the final prints in FB.

[Michael R]

You will still need to adjust base exposure times (as well as other manipulations). For the base exposure adjustment, you could use the papers' ISO speeds (Ilford, for example, gives them) as a very rough guideline, but you'll still end up with trial and error. In my opinion it is usually false economy to try to use different papers for work prints and final prints, but that's just me.

[Ted R]

I find the difference between Ilford MG RC and FB is about one stop, the RC paper is faster and requires one half the exposure time, approximately. This agrees with the information published by Ilford.

edit: in this situation, where the first print is the RC print, then the FB print requires approximately twice the exposure time.

[bob carnie]

You will still need to adjust base exposure times (as well as other manipulations). For the base exposure adjustment, you could use the papers' ISO speeds (Ilford, for example, gives them) as a very rough guideline, but you'll still end up with trial and error. In my opinion it is usually false economy to try to use different papers for work prints and final prints, but that's just me.

I agree with Michael on this, I like to get to know the paper and switching from plastic to fibre is quite a jump when making exhibition prints.. I have never thought this was a good practice.

[Pere Casals]

In the past when doing enlargements, I had to adjust the time the paper was exposed when using RC paper and Fiber paper.

I will be doing some 8x10 contact prints soon, and was wondering if the same principal applies. If so, do any of you have a general rule on how much to increase the paper's exposure when using say, Ilford Glossy RC paper and transitioning to Glossy FB paper?

FB paper is very expensive so I want to try to do most of my experimenting with RC paper before making the final prints in FB.


I tried what you say... and I ended scanning+Photoshop to explore aesthetical alternatives, and making different versions to decide how the final image should look, then I go direct to FB.

Anyway RC is very useful to me to learn how to cook a difficult print, once I've the digital prototype, if complex dodge and burning is to be performed it may take a lot of sheets to get the burning/dodging formula, so in this case it may be cheaper making those tests with RC, so later with few FB sheets I can adjust the cooking for FB. IMHO an skilled printer won't need that step because he will need less FB sheets to get the right cooking than me to bring the RC formula to FB.

So it's a matter of having practice :)