This is a very complicated thing to try to explain in a single post on a BBS, but we were all beginners once, so there's no harm in giving a few pointers.(posted 8576 days ago)Start with a book like Ansel Adams' _The Negative_. It will explain how to test your materials, determine a personal film speed for your equipment and technique, figure out the contrast range of your film and paper, how to meter a scene (spot metering is the preferred mode) so that it will fit into that contrast range, and how to compensate for scenes that have too narrow or too broad a range of tones for your materials.