Dodging & Burning 8x10 Contact Prints

[neil poulsen]

Not wanting to hijack a parallel thread, what are ways to dodge and burn a contact print? I have trouble seeing details on the negative well enough dodge and burn, given that the darkroom is dimly lit with red filtered darkroom lights.

I did some contact printing recently. I finally gave up and finished with some edge burning.

[Greg]

Practice, practice, and more practice. Failures are teachers in disguise. It doesn't come easy in my experience. Keep detailed notes.

[Vaughn]

I have used a sharpie on the glass part way thru the exposure. Other types of masking are options, too.

If the exposures are long enough, you can do a lot of 'playing' around. Take the frame from under the light or turn it off...change the masking, turn the light back on. Might be habit forming. Use cut pieces of rubilith to dodge large areas, or shaded (pencil?) on frosted mylar.

There are (were) photographers who built masks for each negative on glass. Filed them away and used them if they needed another copy. Lots of possibilities.

add: inkjet masks is another possibility.

[Tracy Storer]

Yep/ I worked in a repro lab for Polaroid and we made "dodging masks" out of layers of frosted myar taped to the back of the white plexi diffuser. These got filed with the interpositives we were copying onto 40"x80" Polaroid film. (This was the Polaroid Museum Replicas project that I helped on part time during my Boston 20"x24" days.)

I have used a sharpie on the glass part way thru the exposure. Other types of masking are options, too.

If the exposures are long enough, you can do a lot of 'playing' around. Take the frame from under the light or turn it off...change the masking, turn the light back on. Might be habit forming. Use cut pieces of rubilith to dodge large areas, or shaded (pencil?) on frosted mylar.

There are (were) photographers who built masks for each negative on glass. Filed them away and used them if they needed another copy. Lots of possibilities.

add: inkjet masks is another possibility.

[neil poulsen]

I have used a sharpie on the glass part way thru the exposure. Other types of masking are options, too.

If the exposures are long enough, you can do a lot of 'playing' around. Take the frame from under the light or turn it off...change the masking, turn the light back on. Might be habit forming. Use cut pieces of rubilith to dodge large areas, or shaded (pencil?) on frosted mylar.

There are (were) photographers who built masks for each negative on glass. Filed them away and used them if they needed another copy. Lots of possibilities.

add: inkjet masks is another possibility.

Great idea! I was thinking about this using a Mylar material and a green, water soluble ink Sharpie so that the ink could be removed with a damp cloth. (If needed.)

As it turns out, I have a masking set with a punch and a contact printer with registration pins. I could cut Mylar sheets to exactly the same size as the interior of the contact printer and sandwich these sheets in the frame. (See photos. I would sandwich them so that the glass was between the Mylar and the negative.) In bright light, i could outline areas to be dodged or burned using the green Sharpie. I enlarge with VC paper. I was thinking that green would be least likely to cast a shadow, since it would be a low contrast "shadow".

Anyway, since a punched negative would always be positioned in exactly the same position with respect to the printing frame, I could keep these Mylar sheets with the negative for future printing.

Inkjet masks opens up many possibilities, especially with pin registration. (Scary.)

[Michael R]

Practice (obviously), yes, but also selective masking (contours, pencil shading etc. etc.) can help when things are intricate and/or too difficult to see properly.

Not wanting to hijack a parallel thread, what are ways to dodge and burn a contact print? I have trouble seeing details on the negative well enough dodge and burn, given that the darkroom is dimly lit with red filtered darkroom lights.

I did some contact printing recently. I finally gave up and finished with some edge burning.

[Eric Woodbury]

There are red dyes you can use to 'dodge'. Paint them on the back of the neg.

Morley Baer made 1:1 enlargements with 8x10 rather than contact print. This made dodge and burn easier.

[Tin Can]

Useful tips!

There are red dyes you can use to 'dodge'. Paint them on the back of the neg.

Morley Baer made 1:1 enlargements with 8x10 rather than contact print. This made dodge and burn easier.

[neil poulsen]

There are red dyes you can use to 'dodge'. Paint them on the back of the neg.

Morley Baer made 1:1 enlargements with 8x10 rather than contact print. This made dodge and burn easier.

I think that I like the look of an enlarged print as much as a contact print. So, this is a really interesting option.

[Neal Chaves]

"Morley Baer made 1:1 enlargements with 8x10 rather than contact print. This made dodge and burn easier."

Once I had an 8X10 enlarger capable of making a 1:1 print, I seldom made contacts again. There is a subtle difference that can only be seen in a side by side comparison, but gone are the problems associated with frequent handling of the negative, Newton's rings, etc. One can make multiple prints very quickly.