Split Grade Printing Question

[brian steinberger]

When split grade printing, if you want to do a general edge burn how do you do so? I understand doging and burning for both highlight and shadow exposures, but for a general edge burn can I give equal amounts of exposure for each, such as 2 sec. of grade 0 and 2 sec. of grade 5? Thanks

Brian

[Brian Ellis]

I'm assuming that by "split grade printing" you mean the system whereby you make one exposure at a low contrast and another at a high contrast (as opposed to the way some people use the term, which is making a single exposure at a single contrast and then burning with a different contrast). I never thought much of the first way of prining (i.e. making two separate exposures at two different contrasts) so I have no experience with it. But FWIW and since no one else has responded to your question, I think I'd probably choose a low contrast filter for the edge burn. That would tend to darken the highlights and mid-tones a little but leave the shadows relatively unaffected, which seems more consistent with the goal of an edge burn than doing the opposite (i.e. using a high contrast filter which would darken the shadows even more but leave the highlights and mid-tones relatively unaffected).

[Kirk Gittings]

I don't think there is any hard and fast rule. It depends on what is at the edges. For instance a light grey sky will not burn much with a 5 filter but the darker ground would. I think as a common practice I would firat follow Brian's advice and be subtle.

[robc]

I don't want to get into the splt grade printing argument but if all you are doing is burning in the edge, then one exposure at one grade will do it. i.e. there is no need to use two exposures at 2 different grades if they were both going to expose the same area of the print.

What grade you use is entirely upto you and will depend on the subject matter around the edges of the print. You make it look how you want it to look by choosing the appropriate grade.

[Will S]

In Les McClean's workshop on split-grade printing I think (and I might be recalling this wrong) that all burning in was done on Grade 0 unless there was some reason you needed the hardness of grade 5. In general if you start with 0, then do 5 you should be at the right grade and then just burn with the 0. Of course, if you need the burn area to change grade do so, but I think using 0 works best.

Maybe Lee remembers exactly.

Thanks,

Will

[Donald Qualls]

The few times I've done a burn with split filter printing, I've burned with the filter that was printing that area -- if it was light to begin with, like a sky, I burned with the yellow filter; if dark (as in darkening a distracting shadow texture), I burned with the blue.

Of course, one of the things I like with split grade printing is the greatly reduced *need* for burning and dodging...

[brian steinberger]

Of course, one of the things I like with split grade printing is the greatly reduced *need* for burning and dodging...

Donald,

How is the need to dodge and burn reduced. the problem areas would still be there they would just need to be dodged during each tones exposure... ex: a shadow would be dodged during the grade 5 exposure.

Is there something I'm missing. That's what I thought...

Brian

[Kirk Gittings]

I am long time practitioner of split filtering. I never found that it reduced burning and dodging but simply made them much more effective and flexible, sometimes allowing me to print images that simply would not work on a straight graded paper.

[Brian Ellis]

Of course, one of the things I like with split grade printing is the greatly reduced *need* for burning and dodging...

Donald,

How is the need to dodge and burn reduced. the problem areas would still be there they would just need to be dodged during each tones exposure... ex: a shadow would be dodged during the grade 5 exposure.

Is there something I'm missing. That's what I thought...

Brian

I don't think you missed anything, it doesn't make dodging and burning any easier in any way that I know of but perhaps Donald could explain further.

I've always been a little mystified at the idea that I could accomplish something by making one exposure with say a 1 filter and another with say a 5 filter that couldn't be accomplished in a single exposure with say a 2 1/2 filter. Phil Davis wrote an article in Photo Techniques, Sept./Oct. 1994 issue, that I thought pretty conclusively demonstrated that you don't accomplish anything special by making two exposures with two different filters (i.e. split filter printing). Of course some people just like to work that way, they find it more intuitive or something, and that's certainly fine, we all work in the way that's best for us. I just part company with people when they start telling me that by split filter printing they're able to make a print that couldn't be made with a single exposure and a single filter.

Many of the arguments that develop when this topic comes up result from miscommunication. Some people use the term "split filter printing" to mean the practice of burning selected areas of a print with a different filter than was used for the basic exposure. That's a very useful technique, in fact the ability to do that is IMHO the principal advantage of using VC paper. But that isn't what is usually meant by the term "split filter printing" (at leat I don't think it is). The term "split filter printing" usually means a technique whereby two basic exposures are made, one with a low contrast filter and the other with a high contrast filter, and that's how I'm using the term here.

[Kirk Gittings]

Brian, I think your use of the term is backwards. The term as I have understood it from like thirty years ago, has always meant the first example with burning and dodging, and the the simplest example as you say is being able to burn down highlights with a lower contrast filter. It does work differently. Many years after I learned this people started refering to your your second example as another way to utilize the technique, but that was like 15 years later.