I got the Steve Anchell book recently (the variable contrast printing manual). It's very good, but rather too techinical for beginners. I've managed to print using the split print method what have really imroved my printing, but I still can't make it work in situations where the foreground is less brighter than the sky. In this situations I get either a beautifull sky with blocked shadows (and even blocked highlights) on teh foreground or a nicelly printed foreground with washed skies. In Steve's book he mentions that one can dodge or burn with filters without using masks and such. How can I do that? I'm using Ilford Multigrade IV RC with Ilford VC Filters.

-- Herbet Camerino (hbrasileiro@cihi.ca), June 19, 2000

Answers

I think it's getting too complicated for such a job. A straight bit of extra exposure on the sky, with the rest of the print well exposed, and then guarded against the light of the new exposure, is probably all you need here to get a great print. Just find the time for a good foreground, then find the time for a good sky (w/ 2 test prints), then expose the whole print for the foreground, and block the foreground off with cardboard for the remainder of the exposure, using the cardboard fairly high and constantly in motion. Hope this is not written ugly. :-)

-- shawn (shawngibson_prophoto@yahoo.com), June 19, 2000.

It is surprising how much longer a sky can take exposure wise to get some detail in clouds so making a seperate test print of the sky is a good idea.

-- Nigel Smith (nlandgl@eisa.net.au), June 19, 2000.

I haven't got the book in question, so I comment on what I've read in other books, plus my own observations:

It is very instructive to print a few gray step wedges using your papers, with varying grades, but all at the same exposure. You will then note that the soft grades are often faster than the hard ones. You can also understand the principle by looking at the characteristic curves of the grades. Consider, however, that the low densities of the paper lie at the highlight end, not at the shadow end. (Even if, as in the case of Ilford's MG papers, the grades are normalised to have the same speed, the principle holds, but it's perhaps less intuitive.)

You can exploit this to avoid halos (either dark or light) at the borderline of dodged or burned areas. If, e.g., the light sky needs burning in, and the dark foreground is OK, burn in the sky using a soft grade and a mask. Chances are much better this way that the soft excess exposure reaching the dark areas near the borderline does not affect them to the extent of giving a halo.

If the image itself forbids masking (because it's too complex), this kind of "self-masking" may be the only chance to give the highlights some extra exposure. Then make a hard basic exposure giving good tonal separation in the shadows, and give a little excess soft exposure. Again, chances are good that this does not affect the shadows too much. The same applies the other way around: Giving the dark areas of the print a little hard excess exposure in an otherwise soft print has good chances of not visibly affecting the highlights while improving shadow separation. Masks are needed, where the maximum unmasked extra exposure not affecting the satisfactory areas (i.e. satisfactory w/o burning) does not suffice. You can then give the unsatisfactory areas much more exposure so long as you ensure that the little that spills over the borderline is little enough not to become visible.

Hope this helps a little. I had difficulty understanding this principle myself until I took Ctein's advice to print gray step wedges. It remains to be seen whether understanding it suffices to enable me to explain it well.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), June 20, 2000.

Sorry for such a useless answer, Herbet. I never stopped to think you may be interested in the technique(s), rather than simply the print at hand. :-)

-- shawn (shawngibson_prophoto@yahoo.com), June 20, 2000.

Allow me to add to Thomas's post - If you dont mind Thomas - Another "way of thinking" about what Thomas has said is that as you raise the contrast of the paper, the paper becomes "blind" to the more subtle seperation that your negative might contain. And as you lower the contrast - it can "see" more of the seperation. This is most obvious in the higher (highlights) and darker (shadow) areas of the image. So if you lower the contrast to burn in a sky area what you are doing is assisting the paper in "seeing" the range of values in that area. And if you raise the contrast to burn in a shadow area, you are "blinding" the paper to the subtler seperation in the area and as a result shortening the number of values in the area. Also the speed of the paper is also effected by the type of light sourse you are using. e.g. - when using a VC cold light sourse the lower the contrast, the longer the exposure.

-- jim megargee (jmegargee@nyc.rr.com), June 21, 2000.

Is a mask a cut out in board the exact size of what you are wanting to burn in? If not, what?

-- Linda Cooper (svcguru@mcs.net), June 21, 2000.

For split contrast filtration printing always do the burning in with the low contrast filter in place. For burning very bright areas in a print I find an additional one stop of exposure (that is: if the print exposure is 15 secs I will burn the bright areas for an additional 15 secs.) is usually about what is necessary. For burning dark areas on the print much less time is required.

-- Don Karon (dkaron@socal.rr.com), June 22, 2000.

Linda, no, you need a smaller version as you will hold it up off the print surface. What you can do is focus the image on the piece of card (be carefull with paper as it can let light thru too although this can come in handy) located halfway between the baseboard and the lenses (either lower the enlarger head or place your paper on something high enough so you can sketch the outline) Cut out the shape and remember to grab the right piece. Now when you hold your customer shape in the light path it should match your outline rather well. Remember to jiggle it about during the exposure so that the areas blend.

-- Nigel Smith (nlandgl@eisa.net.au), June 23, 2000.

Herbert, It sounds like your negatives might be the problem... If you "pull" your film, your highlights won't need as much burning... maybe none at all. The old rule holds true... "meter for the shadows and develop for the highlights". If the contrast range is higher than the paper will record, your going to have to do alot of work. Do a test. Take a roll of your favorite film and for the ease of it all, set it on a tripod outside. Make sure you have good sun and deep shadows in the frame. Shoot the whole roll on the same scene and plan to do a clip test. A clip test is a clip of a several frames of the roll and developed normally. Then another clip is -10% off the "normal developing time. Another clip is -20% off the "normal" time and just for the sake of it, do a clip of 10-15% more than the "normal time. This way you will definitely see what takes place with over and under development. I think this will help you out. It really sounds like you need to take about 20% off and make that your "normal" time for this situation. The other alternative is to use a compensating developer like Diafine to name one. Let me know how you made out. To do this test, you'll need to be in the darkroom for an evening at best. Cheers, Scott

-- Scott Walton (scotlynn@shore.net), June 28, 2000.