Attitude

[Bill_1856]

I don't know why, but printing in a good darkroom is a real joy, so long is there's no big limitation on time.
Cleaning up afterwards is really the only downside.
An then the next morning when the "perfect prints" from last night have darkened just enough that they've got to be thrown away and redone. Well, THAT part always sucks.

[Sanjay Sen]

That, I believe, is called dry-down! :D

[Bill_1856]

That, I believe, is called dry-down! :D

Actually, at my house it's called G.D.M.F.S.O.B. Dry-Down!

[Diane Maher]

Actually, at my house it's called G.D.M.F.S.O.B. Dry-Down!

:D LOL! I know that feeling too! I've had it happen with my pt/pd prints. :mad: Oh well, it hasn't happened in a while, but I haven't printed in a while. :)

[jetcode]

I used a Zone VI timer that had dry down compensation built in. Basically if you use a hair dryer carefully you can inspect a dry print in 15-20 minutes. I liked RC paper because it was faster to work with. Once an image is dialed in then switch to fiber and fine tune.

[Ron McElroy]

Even though I use a timer with drydown, I've found in my darkroom that viewing the wet print on a vertical surface in low light approximates the drydown of the print. In my case its a 15watt white blub and the print is place on a 20x24 sheet of grey PVC.

[Deane Johnson]

Believe it or not, you can use a microwave to check dry down in about 30 seconds.

[Bryan Lemasters]

AA used the microwave method.

[Bryan Lemasters]

................in his later years.

[Mark Sampson]

In my microwave it takes 2 min. for DW paper. I miss Kodak's Polymax Fine-Art F, which didn't dry-down appreciably. The Ilford and Oriental papers that (sort of) replaced it do dry down, but I've got that figured out now. It's not surprising that Adams nuked his test prints- the movie going around shows him using an Amana RadarRange- I believe the 1st microwave on the market.

[Sanjay Sen]

I've found that Slavich Bromportrait has very little dry-down. Anyone else tried this paper and noticed the same thing?

[Bill_1856]

That brings up another question: is it better to have a paper which has a lot of dry down (which you know is going to happen and compensate), or just a teeny tiny amount which leaves you with a print too good to throw way, but not perfect enough either?

[John Z.]

Does microwaving the print truly duplicate the drydown effect the same way? I have always thought that air drying led to more drydown than microwaving.

[Rob_5419]

I don't know - after I exploded an egg in our first microwave, I never heard the end of it.

We sold the microwave shortly after, deciding that it was too high teck for me to master.