Let’s open a new can of worms- “best color for the enlarger’s table surface?

[popdoc]

Made room for, and assembled, my “new” Super Chromega 10 x 10 enlarger. It’s natural wood table is deeply scarred and stained...

I was about to sand it down and make it look like new – a beautiful natural wood finish. Then it struck me, with the help of someone much smarter than I, (Alan Ross) that perhaps it would be better off being gray or dark gray.

I bet there are a lot of opinions with a lot of “intellectual support” behind them.

I would appreciate everyone’s advice (or SWAG’s) before I jump in!

Thanks!

BTW- Happiest of Holidays!!!!

Alan


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tin Can]

Poll!

Light grey matt for a couple reasons.

I can then see a projection size beyond the easel.

Shiny is very bad, so matt.

Timely thread for me as right now considering how to paint a new 8X10 enlarger table.

[otto.f]

And why matt grey and not matt black?

[Tin Can]

I answered that in my post.

I have used gloss back and matt black on 2 10X10 enlargers and found myself putting down a matt white mat board to see what I wanted to enlarge.

Sometimes I don't use an easel...

So matt grey will be next and is easily changed if necessary.


And why matt grey and not matt black?

[Peter De Smidt]

Randy made a great suggestion.

[Tin Can]

Thanks Peter and I was just looking for 18% grey paint.

Then saw B&H popup with this product. GTI Standard Gray Neutral N7 Vinyl Latex Paint (1 Gallon) (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1345208-REG/gti_n7_g_grey_neutral_n7_latex.html/?ap=y&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3dHNgayn3wIVCg1pCh0BQwp4EAQYASABEgIm3vD_BwE&lsft=BI%3A514&smp=Y)





Randy made a great suggestion.

[Greg]

Thanks Peter and I was just looking for 18% grey paint.

Then saw B&H popup with this product. GTI Standard Gray Neutral N7 Vinyl Latex Paint (1 Gallon)

But I don't need a $100 gallon so I am checking a local store.


(https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1345208-REG/gti_n7_g_grey_neutral_n7_latex.html/?ap=y&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3dHNgayn3wIVCg1pCh0BQwp4EAQYASABEgIm3vD_BwE&lsft=BI%3A514&smp=Y)

Back here in Connecticut wanted to paint the walls in my darkroom 18% gray. Took an 18% gray card to our ACE Hardware store. They matched it perfectly for a little over $20.00 a gallon. Going on 3 years and the painted walls still match an 18% gray card.

[Jim Jones]

If I ever build another darkroom from scratch, I'll paint all of it white except around the enlarger, and use a 18% safelight. When the room lights are on, it's nice for the room to be bright.

[Tin Can]

Right now i cannot find my two 18% grey cards.

I am not buying the B&H paint, but I like their explanation, quote from B&H,

"GTI N7/G Overview
The 1-gallon Standard Gray Neutral N7 Vinyl Latex Paint from GTI is formulated for the plastic, textile, and the non-graphic industry, which is required to evaluate color correctly in a viewing area. The Munsell N7/ paint is applied in the surrounding area, which eliminates simultaneous color contrast. This helps your eyes see color accurately because of the chromatically neutral environment. At the same time, the paint minimizes color pollution caused from chromatic surfaces. The matte flat enamel paint is water-reducible and can be applied by roller, spray gun, or brush."









Back here in Connecticut wanted to paint the walls in my darkroom 18% gray. Took an 18% gray card to our ACE Hardware store. They matched it perfectly for a little over $20.00 a gallon. Going on 3 years and the painted walls still match an 18% gray card.

[Pere Casals]

Super Chromega 10 x 10 enlarger.

If from a 10x10" you are to make large prints then problem is not the table color, but the color in the walls, in special those that are close to the enlarger.

Of the light arriving to the paper around 90% is reflected, if walls are very reflective and reflecting (say) a 70% then of the light power that the lens throws a 63% if glowing back from the walls. This is a problem if print is large, the darkroom is small and all walls are white. For big prints a priority is painting black the wall in the back of the enlarger.

[Doremus Scudder]

Randy's idea for the baseboard color is in the right direction. I'd make it matt yellow (OC safelight yellow) however. It would be a little brighter than gray and any light reflected from it would automatically be safe :) There's a reason all the Saunders easels were yellow.

Pere makes a good point as well about reflections. Matt black around the enlarger is good, but safe yellow or red will work too as does judicious baffling around the enlarger head and negative stage.

Jim Jones' choice of white for the rest of the darkroom is also mine. Everything except around the enlargers is bright, cheery satin white. Great for bouncing safelights from.

Best,

Doremus

[adelorenzo]

I make my counter tops out of melamine. My local building store only carries white, so that's what I use. Although my enlarger has masking blades so I don't need to worry about light spill beyond the easel. I've never really thought that this would be an issue.

[Fred L]

All the enlargers I have used have predominantly been white baseboard. The walls around the enlargers are greyish (close to 18%). Like Anthony, my enlargers (Devere and V35 Focomat) have masking blades, so that cuts down on any light hitting the baseboards. So basically, I'd go dull white if I had to repaint them.

[ic-racer]

White, so you can project on the baseboard for many reasons dealing with setup and maintenance and pre-printing setup, mixing box evaluation, lens coverage, alignment etc.
The time one would want black or dark is if you have a vacuum baseboard and you need to see the edges of the paper against a dark background.
I had this piece of melamine that I gave to a friend for use as a DeVere 8x10 baseboard.

185591

[Pere Casals]

Matt black around the enlarger is good, but safe yellow or red will work too as does judicious baffling around the enlarger head and negative stage.

Good point, for a BW enlarger a safe color would be preferable in those walls, to see better, it's in the case of working RA-4 that the black is more necessary.

[Drew Wiley]

I relaminated even my Durst baseboards with black Formica. Somehow, the concept of a darkroom would warrant dark things within it. If stray light hits a pale baseboard , it can bounce off this, then hit and reflect off the polished stainless rods and columns. That's why Durst has a dark bellows curtain on the lower half of the 8X10 enlargers. You could add your own for the 138 series. I've tested for this. The problem is real. Most printing paper is too slow to cause headaches; but if you sometimes enlarge onto regular sheet film like I do, some extra care is warranted. All my walls and counter surfaces adjacent to enlargers are also black. Light gray would be fine in the sink room, using correct safelight of course. I made the mistake of taking AA's book advice to paint those walls tan, and hate the effect. I have to take test strips into a different room without that bias to accurately judge the effect of toning. One of these days I'll repaint behind the sink. 18% gray is too dark for convenient color assessment. It's for exposure calibration. And I'm very skeptical of gray cards or paint being on target in that respect unless they came from someone like MacBeth or XRite. I've batched up my own truly neutral 18% gray paint using an industrial spectrophotometer. It's a tricky task. Not a single gray card I tested back then was even close. The mid gray patch on my MacBeath Color Checker Chart was spot on.

[Drew Wiley]

I'm surprised that no worms have been thrown at me yet, not even a web link by Pere containing a picture of Damien Hirst's darkroom all covered with glow-in-the-dark giant polka dots. But yeah, yellow Saunders easels. I use them myself, but only for black and white prints. Otherwise, for color work, I remove the masking blades and repurpose them on black vacuum easels. The most nitpicky case is dye transfer matrix film, which must be exposed through the back. Ideally the black surface should be fully deep matte black, and not even semigloss, or it might reflect back enough light onto the emulsion to cause problems. But matte black paints scuff badly, so I'm going to experiment with semi-permeable (to air) deep black thin sheets of paper in between the emulsion at vac easel surface. That project is on the backburner. But one I did complete this year was to make a miniature pin-registered vac easel suitable for
8x10 film, using thick black Garolite (fiber-reinforced phenolic), then sanding it matte. Works wonderfully for this application. But in sizes sufficient for moderately large prints, Garolite flatness can itself be affected by humidity, even
if slowly. So I'd have to laminate it to something even thicker and stiffer, and alas, cumulatively heavier (thick Garolite is darn heavy to begin with, and eats up carbide blades and bits like it was made or rock).

[Mark Sampson]

Note that the drop table and baseboards for 4x5 Omega D4-5-6 series enlargers are all a flat white finish (or a very light neutral gray). They have enough surface texture to be non-specular.

[Peter De Smidt]

My De Vere baseboard is whitish. That Saunders yellow is ugly, but to each their own.

[Pere Casals]

Most printing paper is too slow to cause headaches; but if you sometimes enlarge onto regular sheet film like I do, some extra care is warranted.

In theory (not accounting LIRF) medium sensitivity is irrelevant for that, if a medium has lower ISO then you have to expose a longer time, so the effect it's the same. What matters is the image_forming_light vs stray.

This is easy to measure with a luxmeter. Safelight closed, we cast a shadow in the projection and we meter there, then we also meter in the dense areas (highlights in the scene). From that we now the effect of the light bouncing in the walls. A certain amount of stray light may not be bad, even it may work like a benefical mild pre-flash. But projecting on a 1m print will illuminate well a white wall in the enlarger's back !!

______

Regarding that the base table color is irrelevant if we mask the negative to project only on paper, and usually we also have an easel on the base board. What is reflecting is the paper, not the table under the easel.

[interneg]

If your enlarger is spilling enough light for it to be reflected off the walls in sufficient quantity to affect your prints, the problem is the enlarger head, not the walls. Also, would like to re-emphasise Drew's comments about reflections off bits of the enlarger itself - parts of the lower section of floor standing DeVeres can reflect image spill, some black board & judicious use of the masking blades in the head/ carrier solve it pretty painlessly.

Having used grey & white easels, white is much easier to use - you can see the image for a start! Only problem is enlarging on to film & reflections bouncing off the baseboard - but a piece of black paper under the film solves that.

[Pere Casals]

Most printing paper is too slow to cause headaches; but if you sometimes enlarge onto regular sheet film like I do, some extra care is warranted.

In theory (not accounting LIRF) medium sensitivity is irrelevant for that, if a medium has lower ISO then you have to expose a longer time, so the effect it's the same. What matters is the image_forming_light vs stray.

This is easy to measure with a luxmeter. Safelight closed, we cast a shadow in the projection and we meter there, then we also meter in the dense areas (highlights in the scene). From that we now the effect of the light bouncing in the walls. A certain amount of stray light may not be bad, even it may work like a benefical mild pre-flash. But projecting on a 1m print will illuminate well a white wall in the enlarger's back !!

______

Regarding that the base table color is irrelevant if we mask the negative to project only on paper, also usually we also have an easel on the base board. Whay it's reflecting is the paper, not the table under the easel.

[ic-racer]

Handeling color film under an enarger requires special considerations and I'd probably heed all Drew's remarks above in that case.

In terms of B&W enlarging, I'm curious where people are getting enough stray light on the enlarger table to cause an issue. Even if there were some stray light hitting the table it would have to reflect off your mirror on the ceiling and pass through the enlarger head, to reach the paper. Many B&W enlarging papers are white with a shiny surface. This provides more light reflection than the baseboard.

One can measure combined stray light and flare effects by projection printing a step wedge to paper (mask it in the enlarger and project on most of the paper area) and compare that to a contact print of the same step wedge. It is a laudable task to get them to be as close as possible. Primary source of the flare would be a dirty enlarging lens. White-light reflectivity of the baseboard would likely be undetectable in this test. I'm sure we would all like to see anyones results showing improvement in this measurable projection printing contrast by painting a white baseboard black.

[Drew Wiley]

Another consideration which might not apply to everyone, but could affect choice of a truly versatile darkroom beyond basic black and white work : Durst 138 enlargers were also designed for copy stand use, with sheet film in the carrier acting as the camera, and baseboard lights as the copy surface. That posed a far greater risk of reflections off the column which cross-polarization of the lights could only partially control. Today it would be hard to identify anyone still using a LARKA copy carrier; but 138 chassis minus a head are still coveted for copystand use, with some kind of camera attached to the horizontal column extending from the vertical one. Glennview even machines an adapter to make this convenient. What I did in my copystand days was to cover the stainless columns with a sheath of darkroom black-out fabric - the deep velvety black non-linty kind. Even slipping black ABS corrugated pipe over the stainless components allowed too much refection, especially on shiny surfaces like Cibachrome prints. So my argument is this, whereas I began in color photography and then added black and white, there may well be people putting together a nice black and white darkroom, but who might want the optional capacity to later branch out into either color or even black and white processes that require enlarging onto reflective film. I recently did something like that myself, which involved a TMX green separation filter interpositive from an enlarged color negative, which was in turn contact printed onto Ortho Litho film to achieve a very different look black and white print from what would have been achieved by old panchromatic printing paper. It even turned out very different from the parallel shot I made at the time directly onto regular black and white film - a nice print itself, but lacking something quite special I was after, and willing to put in a lot of time and effort to get. Just an example. I like experimenting like this.

[Drew Wiley]

I just noted Pere's intermediate post. I have a very expensive darkroom meter hundreds of times more sensitive than a lux meter (have a decent one of those too). But if a lux meter can even detect light in proximity to film, that's waaaaay too much light! Of course, ortho lith film is quite slow and designed to be used under a red safelight, just like paper; but even with that, I'm careful about reflections from nearby instrumentation. One of my favorite lab films for technical usage is TMY 100. Because it has such a very long straight line, even tiny amounts of light from luminous timer hands, for example, can fog the lower values. TMY 400 is obviously even more sensitive. And in technical usage, such films are not only laying about awhile in the dark, like for punch and register applications, but often developed to a relatively high gamma - higher than for ordinary photography printing applications. Therefore, the usual mantra, "I don't have any problem with film" is valid only if someone else has the same generic parameters, and hasn't reach the threshold yet. But it's definitely there. And it might already be affecting something you're not aware of. Therefore, I prefer to keep "dark" in the term, "darkroom", without the extra prefix, "sorta-dark-room".