Need a few printing pointers please

[coops]

Sorry ifthese questions have been asked before, I did a quick search. Got my first enlarger up and running, a used Chromega D Dichroic 2. My first prints were really dissapointing, with everything looking two shades of gray.
The 4x5 negs look good, with lots of detail and no areas of just black or white.
I did notice that while taking the exposure, a fair bit of light escapes from where the bellows meets the top. Once the neg. carrier is placed, it's not a really tight fit. But the prints do not look foggy.
I have a bunch of filters marked -1 thru 5+. I tried a few of these but did not have much success.
Lastly, and this is kinda embarassing, my developer and fixer require a 9:1 mix. I mixed 100 cc's of dev. with 900 cc's water. It occured to me that perhaps I should be using ounces.
Otherwise I am developing, fixing for the suggested times, temp is constant and I am washing the fiber paper for an hour or so.
Any pointers appreciated. Thanks

[Richard Wall]

The filters marked -1 thru 5+ are contrast filters. The lower numbers will reduce contrast while the higher numbers will add contrast to the prints. The number 2+ filter is considered normal contrast.

It sounds to me like either your developer is bad or mixed incorrectly or your paper has been fogged. The slight light that comes from the enlarger head should not effect the prints as long as it is not a significant amount of light. Nearly all enlargers emit a small amount of light from the negative carrier. If you are worried about that light, you can minimize it by using black gaffers tape and cardboard to make a little flap that covers the seam. If you have access to Dektol, you might want to use that developer instead of what you are using. That way you can determine if the problem is the developer or paper. I tend to use the Dektol straight, but some mix it with water in a 1:2 (1 part Dektol to 2 parts water) solution. Develop the prints for 1.5 minutes (straight Dektol) or 2 minutes (1:2 Solution).

You probably already know this, but paper developer is different than film developer. They are not inter-changeable. You can not develop paper with film developer.

One other thing to keep in mind is that safelight exposure of the paper should be kept to a minimum. If you leave your paper exposed to a safelight for a long time the safelight will slowly fog the paper. I have never tested the amount of time needed to significantly fog paper (I expect several hours at least), but the less exposure the better.

I hope this helps.

Richard

[Chuck Pere]

Are you using VC paper? Graded paper wouldn't change with the different filters. Also sounds like you have a color head. How are the filters in it setup? Normally with a color head and VC paper you would not use separate filters but dial in a filter value in the color head. The paper data sheets sometimes have color head settings for different contrasts.

1:9 is Ok with either cc or oz.

[coops]

I did a little reading to find that the lever on the side of the head, that changes between wgite, high and low, should be set to white for b&w printing. The disengages the three color filters in the head. It was on white when I made the prints.
I am using vc paper, both the Ilford pearl and an Ilford fiber.
Safelight exposure I don't believe is an issue.

[Winger]

It's also possible that you're not exposing the prints long enough. That will get you relatively grey results as well. Did you do a test strip first? That will tell you the exposure needed to get a good black somewhere. If you don't like the contrast in the test strip, then you can change the filter (higher # for more contrast, lower # for less) and do another test strip. My usual process for a test strip is to have a long strip of paper, place across an area of the image that is relatively constant (not dark on one end and light on the other), and expose it in 2 second increments while moving a piece of black matboard across. I develop it the same as I will the print, but with a little less time in the fix. If the test strip doesn't have any black spots, but there should have been some based on the neg, then I do another with more time. For my first work print, I'll use the time where the blacks just started to be black. Then I'll go through other things to get the highlights where I want them if they aren't there already.
You don't say where you are, but maybe someone is nearby to give a quick assist? Once you get this part down, the rest is all adjusting and practice.

[coops]

For my first work print, I'll use the time where the blacks just started to be black. Then I'll go through other things to get the highlights where I want them if they aren't there already.


Thanks, I may not be exposing them long enough. Please clarify, when you get a test strip with shadow/black where you want it, what do you do to get the highlights where you want them?
I lave in Gainesville, Florida.
Thanks for the responses

[W K Longcor]

Just adding my 2 cents (as an ex-photo teacher) -- be consistant in your technique. Richard mentioned print development times along with dilutions of the developer. A good starting point! When you are learning -- pick a developer, a dilution and use the proper development time for that dilution. Many newcomers will pull the print from the developer too fast if it is overexposed and seems to be coming to completion too fast. DON"T do that! ALWAYS develope to a consistant time, with a consitant agitation -- make those test strips to find proper exposure. Sometime in the future -- when you've become a master printer -- you can fiddle wth changing developers, dilutions and times. Have fun!

[Winger]

I'm in PA, so I guess it'd be too long a trip for me.
I'm not a master printer or anything, so this is just what works for me.
To get the highlights where I want, it's sometimes a matter of dodging those areas to lighten them or burning them in to darken them. Other times, I use the contrast filters to get what I want for tones. If the whites aren't white enough, then I go up in filter #. If not enough detail is showing, then I go down filter #.
The biggest thing to "get" is to understand the contrast filters. A low # filter will allow the lighter areas to get darker faster and the dark areas will take longer to get black. A higher # filter will let the dark areas get black faster, so the light areas will still be lighter. It's much easier to demonstrate (even to yourself) than to try and describe. What I think I'd suggest is to take a neg that has a seemingly good range of white, black, and middle tones and do prints with at least the whole number filters from 00 to 4 - each one done so the dark areas are just black. Then, when you see how the lighter areas respond, I think you'll have a better idea of how to adjust another print to match what you want.
And I use ml to measure because it's easier math - 100ml dev with 900ml water is easier than figuring out ounces for me.
Play with them, burn through some paper (RC is cheaper to use for this, then go to fiber when you're comfortable). Have fun!

[Brian Ellis]

Shades of gray and little change with different filters and a good negative sounds like fogged paper (i.e. paper that has been exposed to light at some point or that is just very old). Do you get the same type of print with paper from both boxes of paper? Is the paper newly-purchased? In any event, try paper from a different source than what you've been using and see if that fixes the problem. If not, then either something weird is going on with your methodology or you're the cause of the fogging, perhaps through enlarger light leaks, perhaps from a problem with your safelight, or perhaps from other light leaks in your darkroom.

You should do a couple tests just to be sure you aren't causing the problem (and even if you solve the gray paper problem, these are tests that should be done anyhow). First, put a lens cap on your enlarger lens, turn out the room lights, sit in the dark for 10 minutes, then turn on the enlarger light and look carefully all around the enlarger to see the various places where it's leaking light. In particular, put your head on the baseboard and look up into the enlarger lens to see if light is escaping from around the lens holder and shining down onto the paper. Fix all of the light leaks, including the one you've already noticed.

IMHO it's very poor darkroom practice to work with an enlarger that's leaking light and almost all of them do. It isn't always easy to detect fogged paper, often instead of the extreme fogging that shows up as shades of gray you can have minimal fogging that shows up as a subtle degradation of highlights that's almost impossible to detect until you see a print from unfogged paper. Enlarger light leaks are common sources of that type of minimal fogging.

It may take some ingenuity but most light leaks can be fixed with tape. John Sexton's Saunders enlarger looks like it got caught in a tape storm. The leak between your negative carrier and the light source of course can't be fixed with tape because you need to access that area to insert and remove the negative carrier. I rigged up a simple box out of a cardboard shoe box to cover that kind of light leak. The box could be easily lifted off to insert or remove the negative carrier and then put back on before the enlarger light was turned on.

Also do a proper safelight test, NOT the kind where you just drop a quarter on the paper, turn on the safelight for a while, and then develop the paper to see if you can see a ring where the quarter was located. Kodak used to have a paper on its web site that described the correct way to do a safelight test, Ansel Adams' book "The Print" also has one. If you don't know how to do a correct safelight test Google on "safelight test" or something like that and you should be able to find one.

It sounds like you have a color head but are using separate filters to control contrast. You shouldn't be using separate filters with a color head. The filters in the head itself are all you need.

The developer working solution should be fine, it's the 1:9 ratio that's important, not the measuring system. Is the stock developer solution fresh?

[Richard Wall]

A few more thoughts about your printing problems.

One way to check if your paper has been fogged is to develop an unexposed sheet of paper. If it develops any tone, it has been fogged. If you are using a printing easel, you can also check for a white border on one you existing prints. The border should be the same tone as the base of the paper.

Another thing to check, if you have not found your problem yet, is to look at the light source in the enlarging head. Variable contrast (VC) papers are sensitive to blue and green light. You control the contrast by limiting the amount of blue or green light with the contrast filters. The more green in the light the lower the contrast and the more blue in the light the higher the contrast. You will notice that your high contrast filters (5+) are more magenta and will block out the green light effectively increasing the blue quotient and thereby increasing contrast. The lower contrast filters (1- or 00) are more yellow and will block blue light and reduce contrast. If your enlarger's light source is has a high green quotient, or a low blue quotient, then your prints will nearly always have reduced contrast. A very yellow tungsten light can cause a problem. Tungsten lights do tend to yellow as they age. Make sure you are using a fresh bulb made for an enlarger. You should try to avoid using standard light bulbs as they will effect your contrast. It is often suggested to always use the number 2 filter when making your test strips to help minimize any adverse effects from your light source.

Let us know if you get this worked out.

Richard

[Brian Ellis]

Thanks, I may not be exposing them long enough. Please clarify, when you get a test strip with shadow/black where you want it, what do you do to get the highlights where you want them?
I lave in Gainesville, Florida.
Thanks for the responses

You've said you have a good negative. If that's the case then it's unlikely your gray paper problem is caused by too short an exposure. With a good negative too short an exposure will result in some white areas in the print (the areas of greatest density in the negative). You said you had no black and no white, just shades of gray. If you increased the exposure your grays would get darker and eventually some would turn black but you still wouldn't have a print with good contrast, you'd just have a muddy print that's darker than the muddy print you now have.

[coops]

Thanks for all the responses. I spent most of Sunday light proofing my room, making 100% sure nothing was getting in. Made a few prints on Ilford Pearl paper, and they looked good. So I guess the fiber paper had fogged a little. Don't quite know how, but I guess it does not really matter.
I must say that after spending a few hours in there, I started to get a little lightheaded, presumably because of the chemicals. I use an oderless fixer and had the celing fan going, but wow. Will need to take more 'air' breaks.

[John Cahill]

Hi Coop,
I suggest your sacrifice a sheet of film by making a picture, but with the dark slide only half pulled out. Develop that with your normal film development technique. Put that sheet in the carrier, with the demarcation between clear film and image about in the center. Mark where the line falls on your easel. Then put a piece of the paper you are using for the final prints so that only the clear film is projected on the paper. Use old paper or whatever to mask the image so you only have a strip of clear film being exposed. Make your normal test strip--with white light; no filtration-- with the clear film, then develop the paper the way you do normally--including fixing and washing and toning, whatever. When the paper is dry look for the first block which is as black as the succeeding blocks. You now how the minimum exposure required through THAT film, developed THAT way in THAT paper developed and finished in THAT manner--to produce the maximum black of which your system is capable:You now have the baseline for your paper exposure. Any more exposure with your actual film, and you can lose detail in low shadows. Any less exposure and you will not have all the detail you might wish to have in the shadows--and, of course, you shall not have a black in the image if you need a true black in the image for your photographic intent. With this baseline, you can begin tweaking the overall "lightness" and "darkness" of the print by adding or subtracting filtration. You shall have to replicate your minimum exposure/max black test for each filter change.
Trust me, after getting the hang of it, you will be one step toward gaining the intuitive "knowledge" which was the basis for what E. Weston called "seeing photogaphically." IMHO, getting your foundation black tone exposure is the key to a standardized, repeatable system which will soon allow you to "know" intuitively what you need to do to approach the final print you wish. Have fun!

[Vaughn]

Test strips...while I have heard some folks saying to check for the time one gets a good black, I find the opposite to be true. While one exposes film enough to get detail in the blacks (shadows), it is the opposite for prints. It is the highlights that must get enough exposure to get detail. If you don't give the paper enough exposure through the denser part of your neg (the highlights), changing filtration won't help much as the filters subtract even more light. So pick the time on the test strip that gives you the white you want -- then look at the shadows at that same time. If they are not black enough, go up in the contrast filter (>2). if the shadows are too black go down in filter (<2).

That is the way I work -- but other ways are valid as long as one gets the prints one likes.

As Brian mentioned, you also have the choice of using the built-in filters of the Dichroric head -- there are charts that give the dichro equivilents of the variable contrast filters. The head uses a halogen bulb, so disregard what Richard mentions above about "standard light bulbs".

Vaughn