Originally Posted by
otto.f
A good print starts with a good negative. The less appropriate the negative given the light circumstances, the more hassle with dodging and burning. And a negative is good if it is in line with your wishes, the pre-visualization. So I would advise you to read Adams’ “The Negative”. The need for dodging and burning is in fact the consequence of an imbalance between exposing for the shadows and developing for the highlights. If this balance is right and the negative is good to print on grade 2 or 3, the modern variable contrast papers have enough leeway to come to an ideal print. Btw, mostly burning is less risky than dodging. In both, the risk is that you do it too long which leads to unnatural tonal values in that areas. And it is difficult to control it, costs a lot of expensive paper.
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