I would welcome any ideas to lightproof a door for a basement darkroom. It's a standard 36" x 80" pre-hung interior door.

Also, I have an old Omega D enlarger that I need to setup. There are adjustments on the enlarger to "focus" all four corners of an image. Any advice on the best way to do this? Would I just use a grain focusser to do this?

Thanks.

-- Brian Conklin-Powers (powersb@cua.edu), September 04, 1997

Answers

For my bathroom/darkroom door, I found some draught-proofing strips that are black, and highly effective. If that hadn't been enough, I would have made a black curtain.

I've no experience with your enlarger. Some enlargers, especially those for different negative sizes, have an adjustment for _brightness_, rather than _focus_ in the corners. In this case, expose a sheet of paper with no negative in the carrier, aiming at a mid-gray. Develop it. If the corners of the paper are darker than the centre, there is too much light being projected at the corners.

I suspect that once the enlarger is set up for a given size of negative, it won't need adjusting.

-- Alan Gibson (gibson.al@mail.dec.com), September 05, 1997.

Lightproofing

For my kitchen set-up I use simple black plastic sheeting over windows and doors, available in huge sheets from a gardening store. I hang the sheets from small nails and use duct tape reinforcement on the plastic around the holes to stop tearing. It only takes me a few minutes to put up the sheeting and though I only print at night with some diligence I could probably completely lightproof the room. However I think that the weatherstripping mentioned in another reply is the first step.

-- Andy Laycock (pbrlab@unixg.ubc.ca), September 05, 1997.

When you first set up your enlarger, the base board, lens board and film carrier board should all be carefully levelled. To check for sharpness in the corners, take an exposed and developed (black) piece of film. With a fine point scratch some x's in the middle & at the 4 corners on the emulsion (dull ) side. Put the film in your negative carrier and focus on a large white sheet of paper. The scrath marks should be sharp everywhere. If not, try focussing with your adjustments.

-- John R. Fowler (cpci@fox.nstn.ca), September 05, 1997.

When setting up my new darkroom(utility room), I went to a fabric store and bought several yards of "remnant" fabric. The fabric is actually a heavy vinyl with black felt on one side. I believe that it was referred to as "designer vinyl". I purchased 28 yards of the stuff for $20 and it works great. I had to cover two interior doors and a window. To mount the vinyl, I also purchased several yards of velcro (hook side only) from the same store (less than $1.50 per yard). The velcro was tacked around the doors and window and the felt grips the velcro perfectly. It is easy to remove, and it blocks all light, even at high noon of a Texas summer day!

-- Bo Mosby (bmosby@pisd.edu), August 20, 1999.