Hello. Recently I contact printed an 8x10 negative under a bare 15 watt frosted bulb permanently fixed to my darkroom aka closet's ceiling. While washing the prints I thought that they looked a little blurry, specifically in the weave of a shirt of a person in the photo. The image of the person is less than an inch wide but in past prints I could clearly make out the weave. I thought perhaps the glass in my contact frame was dirty, cleaned it, and tried again. Same thing. So I figured I was making it up and quickly made another p rint, this time as I had in the past, using my enlarger as the light source with the light coming through both the condensers and the lens. And I got a sharper image! The weave of the shirt clearly showed. Does anyone here know why I am getting better images under the enlarger light? Did not E. Weston use a bare bulb to make his prints? Is there something I can d o to improve my bare-bulb technique so I can get rid of my enlarger once and for all, which has been the whole point of this endeavor in the first place? I posted this story in rec.photo.darkroom and got the answer that the Callier ef fect is making more contrast in my image and this is why I am getting a better i mage under the enlarger. I don't believe it. If that were so nobody would use diffusion enlargers. The negative has plenty of contrast for silver gel contact printing and shows plenty of contrast when printed under the bare bulb. But it is not as sharp. I'm using Agfa Multicontrast Classic FB paper. I realize the color of light may be slightly different from the enlarger bulb and the bare bulb, but it can't be that far apart and the overall contrast between prints made with the two differ ent bulbs looks to be the same to me. Other respondents to the rec.photo post said they had experienced the same thing and suggested they now only use enlargers as light sources. Thanks for bearing with me on this long post.
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