[ Post New Message | Post Reply to this One | Send Private Email to Pete Andrews | Help ]

Response to New B&W printing

from Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk)
The simplest way to start "calibrating" your system is, as suggested above to make test strips.

First things first though. The processing times that you're giving seem way off, and you make no mention of the temperature that you're developing at. The "standard" temperature for B&W processing is 68 deg Farenheit or 20 Celcius, and you need to get your processing solutions to a known temperature before you go any further. At 20 Celsius you should be developing the paper for two-and-a-half to three minutes, and fixing for at least 3 minutes in a rapid fixer, 5 minutes in standard fixer. In a hot climate, you can use 30 Celsius and halve those times, but it's not advisable to let your developer and fixer get much hotter than this.

You didn't mention what size prints you were trying to make either. Postcard size prints will only need a couple of seconds exposure. If this is about the size you are printing, then you need to close the lens down to f/11 or even f/16 to get controllable exposure times.

Next you need to establish the minimum exposure required to give a solid black on the printing paper. Take a piece of film that has no image on it, but is clear, such as a piece of the unfogged leader, and put that in the enlarger. Set up the enlarger exactly as you would for making a proper print. You'll need a piece of cardboard a bit bigger than the size of your photographic paper. Cut or tear a sheet of your printing paper into 5 cm wide strips and place one of them onto the easel (all in safelighting of course). Stop the lens down to working aperture, and place the cardboard over the printing paper leaving just 25mm or so uncovered. Give 1 second exposure, and move the cardboard to uncover another 25mm, then give another 1 second exposure. Repeat this until you've done it 10 times in all, then develop and fix the paper, and give it a few seconds wash. Take it into a good light (no need to wait for it to dry)and look at the "steps" you've just made. There should be one step where the paper just starts to look grey instead of black. Say it's the step that had 6 seconds, and 7 seconds is pure black. Seven seconds is your "baseline" exposure. If none of them are solid black, repeat the whole procedure with 2 second steps this time. Now you can substitute your piece of blank film with a real negative, and with any luck you should get a good print using the baseline exposure that you've just determined. It obviously gets a lot more complicated than this, but this should set you on the right road. Good luck!

(posted 8857 days ago)

[ Previous | Next ]