Whilst trawling the internet for hints on improving my darkroom skills I came across this useful tutorial coincidentally using the same enlarger and large format negatives as me.
Printing from Black and White Negatives
Before you start.
Health and Safety
Try and avoid contact with the chemicals. Use either disposable gloves or print tongues.
If there is a risk of contact with your eyes then wear eye protection.
Wear protective clothing, such as a lab coat, an apron or an old shirt.
Rinse your hands after any contact with the chemicals.
Do not use stop bath unless the darkroom is well ventilated, it is a bronchial irritant.
Always dry your hands before returning to the enlarger or using light switches.
Be careful of spills as they will make the floor slippery.
Mix the chemicals as follows
1st tray – developer. Here I am using Ilford Multigrade diluted 1-9 at 20 degrees C
2nd tray – either stop bath or a water bath.
3rd tray – fix (Ilford Hypam) diluted 1-9 at 20 degrees C.
This tutorial is written around printing a black and white, 5x4 negative using an LPL 7451 enlarger. The details regarding equipment will change when using different enlargers, but not the practice. You may have learnt a different method of producing test strips, if so continue to use that method, this is my favoured way.
Firstly you need to place your negative into a suitable neg carrier, In this case the film is 5x4. Normally you would place the negative shinny side up, with the bottom going away from you, the enlarger inverts the image. It is sometimes hard to tell which way round a 5x4 goes, so place the notches on the bottom left of the carrier.
This is then placed in the enlarger. Make sure the light is turned off, and, on this enlarger, you need to lift the head using the lever on the right hand side. Once the carrier has been inserted remember to lower the head again.
Open the lens to its maximum aperture, the brightest setting. Adjust the size of the image by either raising or lowering the enlarger head. Remember to regularly focus the negative, as this will also alter the size. Once you have the correct size, and it looks in focus, check it with a focus finder. Place this in the centre of the image and look down into the top. Yu should be able to see a crisp line running across the centre of the circle. If this looks fuzzy slacken the grub screw on the side and raise or lower the eye piece until it is sharp. Use this to focus on the film, not the image. Alter the focus on the enlarger until you can see the grain that makes up the image. Now close the lens down four stops.
For this print I am using variable contrast (VC) paper. To put it simply, increasing the magenta in the light source increases contrast, while reducing magenta and increasing yellow decreases the contrast. You can buy filters that can be either placed above or below the lens, depending on which type you buy, if you do not have a colour head on your enlarger. Some manufacturers make dedicated VC heads that have a dial for the filtration.
In this instance I check the filtration scale, provided by Ilford with their paper, and dial in the stated filtration for grade 3, an average contrast. The lever on the front of the enlarger must be on Colour and not White as this disable the filtration for focusing etc.
To work out the exposure you will need to produce a test strip. For this you will need about a third of a sheet of paper, placed on the image so that it will include both highlights and shadows. Set the timer to 5 seconds.
Expose the paper for 5 seconds. Using a sheet of card, cover about 1 cm of the paper and expose again. Continue to do this until all of the paper has been covered.
After processing you will be able to tell which exposure is correct. Always view the test strip in white light, it appears darker under red safelights. If using fibre based paper you should dry the test strip before checking as this paper dries slightly darker and looses some contrast.
The test strip on the left looked as if the 5 secs strip would be correct, the lightest one. But this may have been because it just looked better because the others were so dark. If this happens close the enlarger lens down one stop and make another test strip. This time there was enough variation to give an accurate appraisal. Set the timer for the chosen exposure and place a full sheet of paper, shiny side up, in the enlarging easel. Expose the paper.
Slide the exposed paper into the developer, making sure that it is fully submerged. The tray should be rocked gently for the full development time. In this case the time is 1 minute as the paper is Resin Coated. If Fibre Based was being used the time would be 2 minutes.
At the end of the development drain the print by holding it by a corner, using either tongues or protective gloves. This can now go into a stop bath, or rinse, for 30 seconds. Drain and place in the fix.
It can be left in the fix with other images until you are ready to wash your prints.
After at least 5 minutes fix it will need to be washed in running water for at least 10 minutes for RC or 30 minutes for FB paper before drying
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