In a photography textbook I read the following procedure for establishing paper exposure times with 35 mm film:

Develop the film, then take a developed (but unexposed)part of it. This part of the film has no density other than film base + fog, which should be equal on the whole roll of film.

Place this in the enlarger, set the enlarger lens to, say, f/11 and progressively expose a printing paper (so that you end up with paper that has 2,4,6,8,10,..... seconds of exposure).

Develop normally and, after drying, find where the blacks mend (find the exposure which yielded maximum visually perceivable black). Use this exposure for printing all frames on the film.

I like the simplicity and uniformity of this procedure and couldn't identify problems with the reasoning behind it but I'm far from a darkroom/printing expert. (the only reference I had prior to reading this was the advice of my darkroom instructor which was basically that you had to determine exposure from scratch for each frame and then adjust-burning paper and time-until you hit the right one).

So my question is if this method will indeed yield correct exposure for all frames on the film (assuming a normally exposed and developed film) and if there are any drawbacks to using it.

Thanks in advance and greetings, Werner

-- Werner Van der Cruyssen (wernervdc@yahoo.com), June 08, 2001

Answers

This sounds like the Fred Picker "proper proof" procedure. What you will be looking for is the minimun exposure where the black printed through the film base and fog is the same tone as the black that was exposed without the film base and fog. In 35mm film, the area to compare is around the sprocket holes against the sprocket holes themselves.

This exposure test just gets the "proper blacks". The highlights are governed by the development of the negative.

There are no drawbacks to this system provided you have already developed a standard film speed and development times for the film you will be using.

To understand the proper proofing process, you should refer to any of the guides on the Zone System method of exposure and development.

-- Joe Lipka (JoeLipka@compuserve.com), June 08, 2001.

I would not advise that you use the minimum time for maximum black as the basis for your everyday printing. I find it to be acceptable for judging if your "Normal" process is calibrated ok. But from there, we do not live in a perfect world. No matter how much we try to be accurate, variables will occur. The most important thing that the "Proper Proof" approach doesn't really address is how did we "FEEL" about the image. Varying exposure and contrast is needed to make an image that not only looks accurate but also "FEELS" accurate. Also, just because an image doesn't make a "Proper Proof" is no reason to beleive that it will not make an exciting image.

-- Jeff White (jeff@jeffsphotos.com), June 08, 2001.

IMHO, this is rubbish. Kodak (and RIT, I think) did studies years ago about how people judged B&W print quality. The deciding factor was shadow detail. Excellent prints always had adaquate shadow detail, though not always maximum black. Obviously you have to get the highlights right, too. The problem with the maximum black idea is that it requires a large paper exposure to get true maximum black and that's indistinguishable from almost-maximum black, which occurs at much less exposure. The shadow detail gets pushed down too far if you go for true maximum black. Then, to compensate, you start to make negatives that are denser than needed for optimum quality. Another interesting thing they discovered about negative quality was that once the exposure was sufficient to yield an excellent print (i.e., enough shadow detail), any increase beyond that reduced quality. Even with the best exposure control, different negatives will need different basic printing exposures and contrast adjustment. A couple good books are The Negative by Adams, Post Exposure by Ctein, and for something more technical, Photographic Sensitometry by Todd & Zakia (or some more modern version).

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), June 08, 2001.

To add to what Conrad mentioned, Phil Davies has always suggested calibrating the entire system such that the maximum black is about 90% of the DMax on the paper - his logic is that that keeps your shadows off the shoulder of the paper (i.e., there is adequate local contrast in the shadows), you're not at the edge of your materials and the only tonal distortion from the paper is in the highlights (due to the toe of the paper) - tests show that people are more forgiving of highlight tonal distortions than in the shadows. Also, modern papers have incredibly high DMax values - 90% of that is still perceived as 'black' - its only in comparisons in test strips where you have that extra 10% that one can see that it is not deepest black the paper is capable of.

In a more general vein, I believe methods like these may be useful in general for quick proofing, as a check for process variation etc. However, making a print still seems to call for some careful thought and decisions rather than relying on a formulaic system. Cheers, DJ.

-- N Dhananjay (ndhanu@umich.edu), June 08, 2001.

This method will not yield the "correct" exposure for all frames of the film, because it is extremely unlikely that every frame on the film will be exposed and developed correctly for proper placement of shadow detail and highlights. However, it is a good starting point for print exposure and possibly a good exposure for a proof sheet.

Also, if you have a portion of the print that you want to print as absolute black (without any detail), it tells you the minimum exposure time to achieve that result.

-- Michael Feldman (mfeldman@qwest.net), June 08, 2001.

I think what Werner was refering to, was the "minimum time to produce a maximum black" I have used this technique for my proofs, of course the time given to the final print may vary a lot from the "proper proof" time, but I think is a good starting point, on the other hand if you are Barbaum, then just put the paper under the enlarger and make a best guess and go from there...to each it own!

-- Jorge Gasteazoro (jorgegm@worldnet.att.net), June 09, 2001.

Drawbacks to printing for max black: The eye is naturally drawn to the light parts of an image. Only photographers obsessed with shadows will be scrutinizing the dark parts of a print. Every time you change print size or cropping you'll have to recalibrate. There's no accounting for film latitude. There's no accounting for different subject contrasts. IMHO one should adjust print exposure for the highlights, where the paper is most sensitive to exposure changes. Then adjust contrast for midtone rendition. The shadows will fall in place if the film was well exposed.

-- Tim Brown (brownt@flash.net), June 10, 2001.

Thanks!!

Hello everyone,

Thanks for the replies to my question. You shed some light on the matter.

To clarify something: I would of course only have used this method as a starting point for making work-prints, not for printing "final" images (after all, if the esthetic impact of a print could be derived from measuring d-max and printing toward it then why bother doing darkroom work at all).

Anyway, thanks to everyone (also to the ones who mailed me off-list with suggestions). I'll be sure to follow this forum and I'll also buy myself a few books on printing.

-- Werner Van der Cruyssen (wernervdc@yahoo.com), June 11, 2001.

Get the Ilford B&W exposure meter($24?) and a piece of diffuser plastic. Use the pastic to diffuse the image and take an overall reading on the baseboard. One you get it calibrated, this will give you a good starting point and eliminate a lot of test strips. Make your first test print at a grade one contrast. Then work the contrast up, not down.

Past that it is all experience and cut-and-try. Adams "The Print" is one of the best books on printing. If you can interact with a couple of good printers and have them look at your work, this is probably the best way to go, a well as a couple of workshops.

-- Gene Crumpler (nikonguy@att.net), June 11, 2001.

I use the Ilford exposure meter to get a "standard" proof sheet on about Grade 1 paper using MDME. This proof sheet gives me a familiar starting point from which I can make really good estimates of paper grade and exposure times to get the look I want.

-- jeff schraeder (jeff@engineperformance.com), June 11, 2001.