Post exposure - The book

[Brian Ellis]

Yes as I said if you're interested in the science-y stuff, it is quite interesting. But if you want to just learn how to take a photo and make an enlargement etc, not much there. In fact I'd recommend Vestal's book over Ctein's if you're trying to learn darkroom work.

With respect - the "Post Exposure" title should tell anyone that it's not a book intended to help you "learn how to take a photo." And the sub-title, which is "Advanced Techniques for the Photographic Printer," should be a give-away that it's not intended for people who don't know how to make an enlargement. It's a book for people who want to advance beyond the basics of darkroom work and IMHO it's excellent for that purpose. Saying there's "not much there" because it doesn't tell you how to make a photo or an enlargement is like saying there's not much in an automobile repair manual because it doesn't teach you how to drive. That's certainly true because learning how to drive isn't the purpose of a repair manual.

[Gregg Cook]

I have had the first edition for quite some time and find it very useful. I view it as a supplement for the three Ansel Adams technical books, which cover almost nothing about color film, or the modern concerns about RC stability, etc.

I wonder how the second edition changed. I think some of the chemicals referred to in the first edition, lower contrast ciba stuff etc, may be no longer available....

Anyone with the second edition want to tell me what the differences are?

I also have his digital retouching book on my to buy list, but that is off topic....

[Drew Wiley]

You can always e-mail Ctein for specific questions. He continues to experiment with
this and that just to keep abreast of various changes, and there's simply no way to
even be fully up to date when a book even does get published. Quite a bit in the first
edition would be no longer functionally relevant. But so what. I sometimes fish through
photographic and graphics literature 75-years old and come up with a useful tidbit or
two. And given certain precedents one can also improvise current analogues.