8 Enlarging Equipment
Contents
Printing and Exposure Controls
Negative Storage and Proof Printers
Enlargers
The wide array of enlargers on the market is confusing to the prospective buyer because the criteria for selection are somewhat obscure. What separates a $150 enlarger from one that costs $2,000? Is the additional expenditure worthwhile and, most importantly, will it show in the prints themselves?
The most important elements in a black-and-white enlarger are that it be steady, optically aligned, and have a first-rate enlarging lens. The next most important criteria are the characteristics of the light source. This is secondary only because its choice is as much aesthetic as practical. Almost all other criteria for enlarger selection fall outside of the area of necessity into the area of convenience and comfort. Let’s take a look at these criteria.
Steadiness. If an enlarger moves in any direction while an exposure is being made, the movement will decrease the quality of the print. The edges will lose definition and the overall sharpness of the image will be degraded. In many cases, the effects are wrongly attributed to the film, camera, or enlarger lens. Enlarger design certainly affects how steady the system is at the time of the exposure, but any enlarger, even a heavy-duty one already securely attached to a sturdy stand, can be made more solid by providing additional support for the top of the column. The steadiness of some enlargers is improved by wall mounting (see page 107).
Alignment. It is essential that the lens, negative, and printing surface be in perfect alignment to avoid image distortion, unevenness of illumination, and variations in focus from corner to corner.
Quality of Lens. This is probably the single most important element in any enlarging system, and is covered in detail in the section called “Enlarging Lenses” (see pages 144-145). With enough time and patience, almost every other enlarger shortcoming can be overcome, but there is nothing you can do about this element except make sure you have the best or buy another lens. In many cases, the lenses that come with an enlarger are inexpensive and are thrown in as part of a package deal. With camera optics being what they are today, almost any camera will outperform a cheap enlarger lens. This means that what you are getting on the negative is not what you are getting on the print. If possible, always buy the enlarger without the lens, or try to get a package price with a good lens substituted for the one that comes with the enlarger.
Light Source. The type of bulb used in an enlarger is relatively unimportant in black-and-white printing, but it becomes critical for color work. There are three major types of bulbs in use today:
1. Tungsten. These bulbs have been around for a long time and are perfectly suitable for black-and-white printing. They are less suitable for color work because they tend to degrade in intensity over their life span and change color balance.
2. (Quartz-halogen. These bulbs are used in color enlargers because they have a steady output throughout their life cycle and do not develop a build-up of emissions on the glass envelope—which on tungsten bulbs changes the color characteristics of the transmitted light.
3. Fluorescent tubes. Some enlargers will use a series of fluorescent tubes as the light source. This is referred to as a cold light head and is discussed in more detail later.
Light Quality. The quality of light used in an enlarger varies from a highly diffused light to one where the light rays are as nearly parallel as possible. Generally, the more nearly parallel the light rays (called colli-mation), the sharper and more detailed the print will be. Sharpness isn’t everything, however, so other characteristics have to be taken into account. The major types of light available are:
1. Point source. This is a light source emitting rays that are almost parallel and give an extremely sharp print. With 35mm film excessive sharpness can be a problem, because small imperfections such as dust or scratches will be magnified in proportion to the size enlargement being made. The sharper the image and the greater the enlargement, the more these imperfections become apparent. Point source illumination is rarely used because of its ability to highlight these imperfections. Its major application is in the making of large-scale photo murals.
2. Condenser heads. The condenser enlarger uses a lens to focus the light from the source onto the negative plane. Because the light is focused, the image is sharp and imperfections in the negative are obvious on the print. Its quality of magnifying imperfections is overridden by its advantages in terms of sharp images and fast printing times. For these reasons, it is the major form of black-and-white enlarger design.
3. Diffusion heads. The light from a diffusion enlarger source is unlike a condenser system in that the light is highly diffused (less collimated). This diffusion is achieved in several ways: opalescent glass can be inserted in the light path to mix the light; the light can be bounced back and forth in a mixing chamber to scramble it; in the old Vivitar VI, the light was diffused by bouncing against the walls of a light pipe. In all cases, the goal is to have the light scrambled at the point where it reaches the negative plane. This scrambled light results in a softer image on the printing plane and imperfections in the negative are less obvious on the prints.
4. Cold-light heads. These are the ultimate in diffused light. The high level of scrambling is achieved by having a very diffused source, which is usually a series of fluorescent bulbs in the shape of a grid to cover a wide area of space. Because the source itself is large in relation to the negative area, and because it is not focused through a lens system like the condenser system, it reaches the negative plane with the light rays heading in many directions.
Format. Enlargers work best in a relatively narrow range of film formats. If you plan on printing both 35mm and 8x10 negatives, it is not a good idea to buy an 8 × 10 enlarger and use it in both formats. Generally, enlarger design is good enough to encompass a small range of film formats and can do equally well with 35mm and 2 1/4 square, for instance. An enlarger to handle both 5 × 7 and 8 × 10 negatives also makes sense.
Quality of Construction. The quality of construction is a main criterion for choosing an enlarger. This quality will become apparent if you take the time to work with a few enlargers before making a buying decision. The ease and smoothness of operation, the positive control of locking and focusing mechanisms, the quality of materials, and the detailing on the enlarger itself should all be considered. It is definitely worth it to buy a quality enlarger.
Modular Design. A fully equipped enlarger is expensive and long-lasting. A modular design allows you to buy a basic black-and-white enlarger now and add equipment to it as your interests change or you shift into color printing. Regardless of what you think you may be doing five years from now, it is still wise to buy a modular enlarger. People’s minds change, and since modular design costs little extra, you might as well make provision in case yours changes too.
Negative Flatness. If the image is to be undistorted and in focus at all points, it must be held flat in the negative carrier. In 35mm this is normally accomplished by sandwiching the negative between two sheets of material that hold it flat but that have an opening over the image area. If the carrier is well designed, this should be sufficient to keep the negative from buckling. Some enlargers in 35mm—and many in larger formats—use carriers with glass plates to hold the negative. These plates are made from special glass that does not make Newton rings where it comes in contact with the negative. These glass carriers hold the negative flat but provide additional surfaces for the light to refract off of, which lessens sharpness. They are also notorious collectors of dust and fingerprints.
Tilting Lensboard. Some enlargers have a provision for tilting the board on which the lens is mounted. This allows for the correction of distortion known as “convergence of parallels.” If you have ever taken a photograph of a tall building from close up and had to tilt the camera to get the whole building in, you may have been surprised at what you saw when the print came back. The parallel lines of the vertical walls of the building will not be parallel in the photograph but will converge as they move farther from the camera position. This effect is not unlike the apparent convergence of railroad tracks as they recede into the distance. A tilting lensboard will help correct this distortion by tilting the image the other way when printing and thereby reversing the effect. The end result is a print with parallel lines.
Size of Enlargements. The height of the enlarger column determines the size of prints that can be made with a given lens/film format, because the main determinant for image size is the negative-to-easel distance. Most enlargers have a column long enough to print up to 11 × 14 on the baseboard, which is the size range that most photographers use. If you want to make larger prints, buy an enlarger that accommodates them on the baseboard, provides a capability to tilt the enlarger head to focus the image on a nearby wall, or build an adjustable baseboard (see Chapter 6). One shortcoming of tall columns is that they have a tendency to be unstable and cause vibrations that result in unsharp images. For economy and convenience, the adjustable baseboard is the best answer.
Keep in mind that the size of enlargement you want may be understated. For example, if you print 11 × 14 and buy an enlarger that accommodates that size you may be disappointed. If you decide to crop an image heavily you may discover that to make an 11 × 14 print of the section you want you must enlarge the total projected image to 16 × 20— beyond the capacity of your enlarger.
Filter Drawers. If you plan on using variable contrast papers or experimenting with color printing, you will need a place to put the filters between the light source and the negative plane. A good enlarger will have a drawer into which they can be placed. If the enlarger does not have such a drawer, you will have to buy much more expensive filters that can be placed between the lens and the easel.
Enlargers, Continued
Modular Design. Although many photographers start by making black and-white prints, Kodak’s RA print system makes color so easy that many would like to switch. Enlargers now come in modular designs that allow the replacement of the condenser head with a dichroic head. The head makes changing variable contrast filtration much easier as well as providing the necessary filters for color work.
Level. Saunders supplies a level designed specifically to be used to align on an enlarger. Its small size allows it to be used to level the negative stage and ensure that it and the baseboard are in perfect alignment.
How Do You Know the Lens, Negative, and Easel Are Parallel?
Having all the elements in the enlarger light path parallel is important if the image is to be sharp from corner to corner and undistorted. Project the image and focus as you would if you were making the final print. Gradually move the enlarger or its lensboard to correct the image area to make the parallel sides equal in length.
Correctly Aligned Image. If the projected image is perfectly parallel to the negative plane, as it should be, the parallel sides of the image area will be equal in length. In this diagram, the parallel sides A and A’ are of equal length to sides B and B’.
Incorrectly Aligned Image. Measurements of the image area in the improperly aligned image reveal that although the parallel sides B and B’ are of equal length, those of A and A’ are not. This indicates that either the easel surface, lens, or negative—or all three—are out of alignment.
Perspective Correction. This enlarger head twists to allow you to correct perspective problems with an image.
Large Prints. This enlarger allows you to make mural-size prints by easily turning the head assembly and projecting the image onto a wall.
Slide Copier. The dichroic head is turning upside down to provide a light source that is cool and even. Using the built-in filters allows color correction of the slide.
Aristo Cold-Light Head. Aristo manufactures cold-light diffusion heads for many of the major models of enlargers. Because of the type of light source, there is no heat on the negative plane and the highly actinic (photographically active) rays produce extremely fast printing speeds. The VCL 4500 is a variable contrast head that fits enlargers from 35mm to 5 × 7.
Printing a Black Border
Photography is like all other art forms in that it is periodically swept with waves of fashion. One of the recent waves is that what you shoot is what you print. That is, some photographers prefer to do all cropping in camera at the time the picture is taken, then print the entire image plus a narrow border of the surrounding unexposed film (clear on the film, black on the print). The black border has the added benefit of holding together what might otherwise be a loosely organized image. Here’s how it can be done: The edges of the window in the negative carrier are filed down to increase the opening to a size slightly larger than the image area of the negative. Draw guide lines on the carrier and file both halves at the same time. Some carriers will already be slightly bigger than the image area and others will be slightly smaller so the amount of filing necessary varies. File only a small amount, insert the negative and hold it up to the light. If a narrow area shows around the negative image area it will print black because the light coming through it will be unrestricted by negative density. If the border around the negative area does not show, file in gradual steps until it does. File corners carefully—either rounded or squared, but all four the same.
The filing should be done as evenly as possible but mistakes can be evened out in the print by adjusting the blades of the printing easel. With the negative in the carrier focus the enlarger on the easel surface with the image enlarged to the size you want. Now, instead of using the easel blades to make sharp edges on the sides of the image area they should be backed off slightly to leave room for the black border. The distance the easel blades are backed off from the image area makes any fine adjustments of the width of the black border.
Enlarging Lenses
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and the chances are that in most darkrooms the weakest optical link is the enlarging lens. Most of us are quite willing to spend a great deal for a new wide-angle or telephoto lens, but are happy to accept a lens that came as part of the “package” when the enlarger was purchased. A top camera lens will not overcome the deficiencies of a cheap enlarger lens, so it’s worth the extra money to upgrade your enlarger lens if need be. You may discover after printing with a better enlarger lens that your camera lens is better than you thought.
When purchasing an enlarger lens there are several factors to consider.
Optical Quality. Enlarging lenses differ from camera lenses: they are designed to project a flat image (the negative) onto a flat plane (the easel). When first buying a lens, you may have to rely on brand names to determine quality, but if you can test the lens before buying it, there are ways to check its quality.
Evenness of Illumination from Corner to Corner. For each lens aperture setting, expose a sheet of the paper size you normally use sufficiently to give you a middle gray tone. Try to obtain the same tone on each sheet (the Kodak enlarging calculator in the “Kodak Darkroom Guide” can be used to adjust times as apertures change). Compare the prints to see if any show the image tone becoming lighter toward the edges and corners. If so, those apertures should be avoided or the lens returned.
Resolution. Using a Kodak test negative and a low paper grade to reduce contrast, make a print at each of the lens’s aperture settings. Compare them to see if they are sharp across the entire image area. If not, select the one that is sharpest, and you have at least determined your lens’s optimal setting.
What Enlarger Lens Focal Length?
Ordinarily, the focal length of the enlarger lens needed to provide even illumination for a given size negative is the same as the focal length of the taking (camera) lens for that format. Going one step back, the normal taking lens of the camera is approximately equal to the diagonal of the negative. This means that the normal lens for a 35mm negative is 50mm for both the camera and enlarger. For a 2 1/4 × 2 1/4 negative it would be 75mm.
Focal Lengths
| Negative size | Enlarger lens focal length |
| 35mm | 50mm |
| 2 1/4 × 2 1/4 | 75mm-105mm |
| 2 1/4 × 3 1/4 | 100mm |
| 6cm × 7cm | 100mm |
| 4x5 | 135mm-150mm |
Beseler HD Series Enlarging Lenses. Beseler lenses are high-quality lenses that meet the most critical demands of the amateur photographer.
Schneider Componon Lenses. Schneider Componon lenses have an excellent reputation. They perform extremely well through their entire range of apertures. They are expensive but worth every penny if you care about obtaining the sharpest possible images.
Wide-Angle Lenses. Bogen was one of the first to introduce the concept of wide-angle enlarging lenses. These lenses reduce the negative-to-easel distance required for a given enlargement. They also reduce the vibration problem caused by raising the enlarger head on the column, because they reduce the height to which it must be raised for a given image size.
Lens-Cleaning Cloth. Much handier than old lens-cleaning solutions (especially when on location) that required the moistening of a lens surface, then using a special tissue to wipe it off— which was almost impossible to do outside. If kept clean and used with care, it will last a long time and give excellent results.
Easels
A seeming misnomer, enlarging easels are so named because early photographic enlargers were horizontal devices, and upright artists’ easels were used to hold the print material in front of the lens. The steady evolution of these paper holders now offers the darkroom enthusiast a wide choice of easel types, styles, and, of course, sizes.
To the beginner, an easel is often an afterthought, selected on the basis of lowest cost to complete the enlarger outfit. Even limited darkroom experience, however, will show that the proper choice of easels will pay dividends in printing speed, convenience, and accuracy. Moreover, like the enlarger, the easel, if properly selected, is usually a one-time purchase whose useful life is usually measured in decades. The all-purpose easel is a bladed type, which permits adjustable border sizes. Most low-cost easels are two-bladed styles that are satisfactory for the beginner, although they have two limitations. First, paper is always registered into the upper left-hand corner and to position the paper under the enlarger lens, the easel is moved down and to the right of the baseboard. When making small prints, the easel can hang over the edges of the baseboard, which can be awkward. Second, the range of border treatments and sizes is limited. Most professionals prefer a high-quality four-bladed easel that always stays centered on the baseboard and that permits making borders up to 2” or more. However, if price is crucial, you are better off with a good-quality two-bladed easel than with an inexpensive four-bladed one. There are also available a large number of special purpose easels, ranging from ones that make test strips to ones that hold the paper flat with either static electricity or a vacuum.
How to Select an Enlarging Easel
1. Determine the largest paper size you commonly print (for very large prints, you will want to bench-mount or wall-mount your enlarger).
2. Decide what type of easel is best suited to your requirements—bladed, borderless, single-size (speed easel), or multi-print.
3. When going to a camera store to look at easels, take along a fresh sheet of unprocessed paper of the maximum size you’ll be printing (don’t roll it and don’t take a processed print, since paper often stretches after processing).
4. Examine the easel you are considering on a solid table at a normal working height. After reviewing the instructions, operate the easel a few times to get used to it and then try loading and unloading it with your eyes closed. You will be surprised at the difference in registration and handling characteristics between different easels.
5. Check for border accuracy by tracing the blades with a sharp pencil. (Be sure your test paper is, in fact, square.)
6. Hold the easel at eye level and sight across the face, checking for flatness,
7. Look for good finish, a skid-resistant bottom, smooth edges, good fit in hinges and working parts, accurate scales, adjustments that stay put, and blades that are absolutely flat and square.
4-in-l Easels. This Premier 4-in-1 easel is typical of models that allow you to make more than one image size on a single easel. This model has three sizes on the front and a border for 8 × 10 printing on the back side.
Borderless Easels. Borderless prints in the past were made under glass, until Saunders introduced their unique borderless easel with angled paper retainers. This easel is now widely imitated, but quality among other brands varies. These easels work on the “cone of light” principle, permitting the projected light from the enlarger to expose the very edges of the paper, even while the print is securely held by retainers whose front edges match the projection angle. In judging these easels, look for smooth and straight paper retainers that are usually extruded aluminum. Check for perfect base flatness and smooth finish. The non-skid material on the bottom of the base is most important, and the best borderless types use long cork strips along all sides.
Single-Size Easels. When making quantity prints, or for sheer speed and convenience, single-size easels are the logical choice. Ganz makes a full selection of easels of this type that are loaded by sliding the paper into a channel. These easels are lightweight and can be taped to the baseboard to prevent their being pushed out of position.
All single-size easels have fixed borders, usually 3/16” or 1/4” all around. This is fine for publicity prints, catalog shots, or commercial shots that are to be placed in frames or folders.
Four-Bladed Easel. The Saunders Omega easel is the standard in the industry when it comes to four-bladed easels. The four blades allow you to center the image on the paper, leaving a white border on all sides. This makes the prints more attractive if you do not want to trim and dry mount them.
Vacuum Easels. Rather than use blades to hold paper flat for printing, it is also possible to use a vacuum. This Kodak vacuum register pumps the air out from behind the paper so air pressure holds it flat against the easel surface.
Courtesy Eastman Kodak Company
Focusing Magnifiers
When making an enlargement, it is always desirable to have the image projected onto the paper plane as sharply as possible. If it is not, the resulting image will be blurry and the quality of both the taking and enlarging lenses will be undercut. Focusing with the naked eye is extremely accurate, assuming you have extremely accurate vision, but natural selection being what it is these days, a lot of photographers cannot see as well as they should. In order to compensate and make us all equal, manufacturers have developed various focusing devices, all of which operate on the same general principle. They focus the projected image through an eyepiece so that what you see is the image as it appears on the easel surface but enlarged many times, making a small part of it very easy to see.
This allows you to watch the magnified grain go from fuzzy to sharp to fuzzy again as you adjust the focus. You can then select the point at which the image is the sharpest. Since focusing on the film grain itself rather than on a part of the image (which might have been deliberately left out of focus) is the best way to ensure a sharp image, one of these devices can be a real time saver and can help to make better prints.
The main features to look for when buying a magnifier are the amount of magnification, the durability, and the lens construction. As with everything else in photography, price is usually a general indicator of quality, but you must determine what price meets your own needs adequately.
How to Get the Sharpest Print
All focusing magnifiers are designed to focus on the same plane upon which their base rests. Therefore, if you focus with the grain magnifier on the easel surface and then use a piece of double-weight paper on which to make a print, you have not focused and printed on exactly the same plane. To eliminate this problem, you can put a piece of paper similar to the one on which you print under the base of the magnifier. If you use the same paper regularly you can glue a piece to the base of the magnifier, which eliminates the need to think about it every time you want to focus.
When focusing, the best way to find the sharpest image is the same way you would with a microscope or a ground glass on a view camera. You focus until the image comes into focus then goes slightly out. You then back up to the sharpest image and go slightly past it, repeating this back and forth while gradually narrowing the range of movement until you have the image focused without doubt.
Each f-stop of the enlarging lens will have a slightly different focus, so either focus using the f-stop at which you plan to print, or at least print at a smaller f-stop (which has more depth of field).
Focusing Magnifiers. A focusing magnifier works by reflecting some of the light from the enlarger up into an eyepiece that magnifies the reflected image. The unit is designed so that the distance of the light path from the enlarging lens to the focus magnifier’s mirror, and then to its eyepiece (A), is identical to the distance of the light path from the enlarging lens to the baseboard on which the magnifier rests (B). This design allows you to see the small image grains in the negative exactly the way they appear on the baseboard. This allows you to focus the image very finely and also explains why the magnifier needs to be resting on the same surface that you print on, since it’s designed to bring that point into focus. Place a piece of the paper you are printing on under the magnifier when focusing.
Omega Micromega Critical Enlarging Focuser. This focuser is the ultimate focusing device, with several unique features:
- It can focus almost everywhere in the projected image, giving you a chance to compare the focus of the lens at the center of the image and at the edges. The focus will normally be better at the specific aperture for which the lens was designed, and the point of focus at the center and edges will generally get farther from each other as you move the f-stop farther from the best one for your particular lens. If you can’t bring them together by focusing, perhaps you need a new lens (test a new one before you buy it).
- The mirror surface is deposited on the front of the glass surface rather than behind it. This lessens the distortion brought about by light passing through a surface.
- It has a blue filter to help compensate for chromatic aberration in the enlarging lens. Visual focusing is done at 4800 to 5600 angstroms in wavelength, and black-and-white printing paper is most sensitive to light from 3800 to 4300 angstroms. The blue filter eliminates some of the higher wavelengths in the tungsten light source, which allows you to focus on the shorter ones that are closer to what the paper will actually record.
Paterson Micro-Focus Finder. This modern focus finder has a very bright image and an adjustable eyepiece to customize it to your eye.
Paterson Major Focus Finder. This tall focus finder is convenient for focusing large prints since the head of the enlarger will be high above the easel.
Negative Cleaning and Dusting
Negative Dusting
Dust on negatives leaves enlarged white spots on prints because the dust enlarges at the same rate as the projected image. This can be especially serious with 35mm photography because of the high magnification required to go from a small negative to a large print. It is usually easier to ensure that the negative is clean before printing it than it is to spot the print later. Dust on negatives can be caused by several factors, including the general cleanliness of the darkroom, the protective measures that have been taken, and the storage of the negatives themselves.
Techniques to reduce the dust problem to a minimum include:
1. Do not mix dry chemicals in the darkroom. Fixer is especially injurious to negatives, but any chemical powder will hang in the air to settle somewhere eventually. Mix these chemicals in another room separate from the darkroom and your stored negatives. (If you use a bathroom for a darkroom, don’t use talcum powder.)
2. Store negatives in envelopes or pages as recommended in the last section of this chapter.
3. Install a doormat at the outside of the entrance to the darkroom to reduce the amount of new dust brought in.
4. Install filters over all vents and fans through which air enters the darkroom.
5. Install an electrostatic air cleaner to circulate the darkroom air and remove dust from it.
6. Keep the humidity between 45 and 50 percent to eliminate as much static electricity as possible. You might remember childhood days that were extremely dry when you could rub your feet across the living room carpet and zap your sister or brother with a jolt of static electricity. This same effect is encountered in the darkroom, and static electricity attracts dust and holds it to negatives. Moderate humidity lessens this occurrence.
Even if you take these precautions, there will still be dust on your negatives, but by then the problems should be minor and controllable. At the time of printing this remaining dust can be removed with an aerosol can of compressed air or an antistatic dusting brush.
Negative Cleaning
In addition to dust, negatives are sometimes marked with chemicals or fingerprints. The best solution to this problem is prevention, but if something does happen to one of your negatives, you should clean it. The acid in skin oils is especially harmful and if left on the negative can eventually etch itself permanently into the emulsion. You can remove fingerprints with Kodak film cleaner or by careful rubbing with a very clean antistatic cloth. Should chemicals of any kind come in contact with your negatives, rewash them immediately.
Falcon Dust-Off. When it comes to making dust-free prints, there may be a conflict between your concern for the prints and your concern over the ozone layer. Many photographers have chosen to sacrifice the ozone layer, because its remoteness and size make it harder to comprehend. Aerosol cans containing compressed air, such as this product by Falcon, are effective for blowing dust off of your negatives.
When using an aerosol can, remember that you should never shake it before using. Shaking makes the propellant mix with the chemical and escape through the valve. The sudden decompression can dramatically lower the temperature of the propellant and can actually freeze your negatives, causing serious damage.
Leland Power Clean I. The Leland Power Clean I is an environmentally safe (and very stylish) addition to the area of compressed gases that photographers use to remove dust from their negatives or any type of equipment. The problem with it is that it has a rounded bottom and will not stand up, taking up more counter space than necessary.
Cotton Gloves. When doing extensive handling of negatives (or prints), an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The best insurance against fingerprints is to wear a pair of clean, lint-free cotton gloves like these from Porters Camera Store. They are inexpensive and reduce the worry of damaging the negatives as a result of a mistake.
Kostiner Anti-Static Brush. Special synthetic brush fibers use resistance flow to eliminate dust and static electricity. There are no radioactive elements, and no chemicals.
Antistatic Cloth. If you are very careful, you can use a cloth such as this Beseler antistatic cloth for negative cleaning. To be effective, it must be perfectly clean; any dirt on it can scratch a negative.
Compressed Air. Compressed air, although somewhat luxurious for most darkrooms, is invaluable for chasing dust from negatives and equipment. If you have access to a small electric compressor, make sure the air is made dry and oil-free by proper filtration.
Photo by Metzger Studio, Rochester, New York
Printing and Exposure Controls
Beginning photographers often experience difficulties when making their first prints. The density of their negatives tends to vary from greatly underexposed to greatly overexposed. Each print becomes an exploration in patience when you try to find the proper exposure. The problem is compounded because densities vary within the negative itself, and therefore there may not be a perfect printing exposure for the entire negative. Luckily, there are devices available and certain techniques that can be learned to make it easy to find the correct exposure for the print as a whole and also to modify the exposure of various portions within the print.
The Correct Exposure
Expensive electronic exposure meters are not necessary for making high-quality prints. They are used by labs making large quantities of prints, but most photographers prefer the quite accurate method of making a test strip, which is a piece of printing paper on which a series of exposures are made at progressively longer times. By reviewing the test strip after it has been developed and fixed, it is easy to pick out the part of the strip that looks best.
The Work Print
The time on the part of the test strip that looked right is then used to expose the entire image on what is called a work print. This print is developed and fixed and then evaluated in terms of the tonal values. Some areas may be too dark and others too light. At this point a decision must be made as to how to change the various tones. You can accomplish this by changing paper grades (the higher the grade, the higher the contrast) or by local burning and dodging. Burning means increasing the exposure time for various parts of the print to make them darker; dodging is holding back light from sections to make them lighter.
The Final Print
The final print can be the same as the work print if everything is satisfactory. Normally, however, the final print will have to be manipulated to some extent to make it a more interesting or effective image. The tools needed to control the values in the print are simple and can be made out of cardboard. Some are also available commercially and are described in this section.
Kodak Projection Print Scale. This projection print scale consists of a plastic sheet with each pie-shaped slice having a different density. When placed over the printing paper so light passes through it during the exposure, the finished print will show wedges of varying darkness. By comparing the one that seems right with the print scale, you can determine the correct exposure time for the work print.
Courtesy Eastman Kodak Company
Enlarging Exposure Meter. This Paterson meter is typical of exposure meters used in making enlargements. If you work with widely varying negative densities, they can help you save paper by reducing the number of test strips you will need to make.
Dodging and Burning
You can make dodging tools at home out of pieces of black cardboard cut from empty printing paper containers and taped to a piece of wire coat hanger. Circles or other shapes of various sizes can be made to hold back light from larger or smaller areas.
Burning tools do the opposite of dodging tools: they hold back the light from the majority of the print while increasing the exposure of a relatively small portion of it. Several pieces of cardboard, each with a different size hole, will be useful. The holes can be circular or cut to the general shape of the area you want darkened. Vignetting tools are similar to those used in burning, but they generally have a larger opening, often with a serrated edge, so that when the tool is moved about in the beam of light from the lens, it will leave a smooth and gradual line between the dark and light areas.
Vignetter. This Testrite vignetter can be varied in size to fit the size area you wish to vignette. It can also be used as a burning tool by changing the size to fit the area you want burned. Oscillate it smoothly and continuously in the light beam while making the exposure.
Test Strip. This test strip is typical of how they can be made. Each successive strip has an increased exposure over the previous strip. By looking at the strip, you can tell what the correct printing time should be. One of the key points to remember is to place a part of the print that shows all of the tonal values to be considered in each segment of the test strip. If this is not done, it will be impossible to judge the correct exposure as it relates to both highlights and shadows.
Kodak produces many sources of technical information. The reader may want to avail themselves of this extensive body of information by obtaining a list of these publications from their local camera store. This one is a must for the darkroom beginner, but also is a good reference guide for the experienced printer.
Negative Storage and Proof Printers
After the camera has been unloaded and the film developed, it’s important that the negatives be stored carefully and that you can see what is on them. A negative is an irreplaceable record and should be treated with the care that all such items deserve. The history of photography is replete with stories of valuable negatives being destroyed. Many Civil War negatives on glass plates, including some Brady negatives of Lincoln, were recycled into such useful items as greenhouses. You may not want to preserve your negatives for posterity, but you may want to make prints from them in the future, so they should be maintained in as good a condition as possible.
Contact-printed proofsheets can be made to show you what the negatives contain. They are made by laying the negatives, emulsion side down, on a sheet of printing paper, holding them flat with a piece of glass, and exposing them with the enlarger light. The resulting images are the same size as the negative image. Making proofsheets serves several purposes:
1. It lets you more easily find a given negative by allowing you to look at positive images rather than holding negative strips up to the light.
2. If contact sheets are made cor-recdy, the proof will tell you not only the subject matter of the negative, but also its quality in terms of exposure, density, sharpness, and so forth. To determine the density of a given negative it is important to print all of your proofsheets to the same standard. In this way you can tell by looking if the negative is under- or overexposed or is satisfactory.
How to Standardize Proofsheets
Many photographers try to make their proofsheets look like a series of little gallery prints. The problem with that approach is that it makes it difficult to evaluate negatives that are selected for enlargement. It makes a great deal of sense to standardize the exposure given to all proofsheets so you can tell immediately by looking at them if a given negative is well-exposed or is under-or overexposed. You will also be able to tell if you are consistently underexposing or overexposing the film.
To standardize the printing of proofsheets you must determine the exact exposure time required to print pure black in the areas of the negative lacking in detail (very dense shadow areas). This is accomplished by testing to determine how much exposure is necessary to obtain pure blacks in the unexposed edges of the film.
The edge of 35mm film has a series of sprocket holes used to transport the film when it is advanced in the camera. These holes are completely transparent because the film has been removed from them. The area around the holes appears to be transparent, but it actually has some density (called film base plus fog). To determine the correct exposure you have to determine at what point the area around the sprocket holes turns just as black as they are. Here’s how:
1. With a negative in the enlarger, focus it as if you were planning to print a full-frame 11 × 14 enlargement. Remove the negative.
2. Make a test strip using the negatives and proof printer, giving increasingly longer exposures to each successive strip, that is, 5, 10, 15, 20 seconds.
3. Process the print sheet and examine it under good lighting. You will notice that the area under the sprocket holes turns pure black much earlier than does the area surrounding them. At some point on the test strip, the holes should no longer be distinguishable from the surrounding area because both the holes and the surrounding area are pure black. The time of exposure needed to make this happen is the correct exposure to make all subsequent proofsheets.
If as a result of standardizing you find that all of your proofsheets are too light or too dark, you will know that you have a tendency to over- or underexpose. You should make the correction at the time the picture is taken (or later, when the print is made), and not tinker with the proofsheets.
Negative Carrier. Saunders has developed a negative carrier that can be used in a 4 × 5 enlarger to make enlarged proofsheets. The problem with standard 35mm proofs is that it is very difficult to evaluate accurately the image because of its very small size. With this unit, the proofsheets have enlarged images that are easier to evaluate.
Print File. Although some negative storage envelopes on the market require you to remove the negatives from the sheet to make a proof sheet, this step has been eliminated by some of the newer envelopes that allow you to print through the sheet holding the negatives. In addition to being a great time-saver this also subjects the negatives to less handling and therefore reduces the possibility that they will incur any damage. Print File makes a complete line of these negative storage envelopes for different film formats. They are also designed to fit any 3-hole binder which eliminates the additional expense of having to pay a higher price to fit a nonstandard storage binder.
Large Print Files. Used for storing large size prints.
Proof Printer. Print File and others also make proof printers that hold the negatives flat against the printing paper, which is absolutely necessary if your proof sheets are to have accurate, sharp images. This can be done with a piece of clear glass but if you print a number of rolls at one time the hinged proof printer makes it much easier and faster.
Print File Hangers. These plastic inserts allow Print Files to be used in a standard Pendaflex filing system.