Hi,

Yesterday I printed a landscape and I wanted to burn in the sky. At first I used a grade 2,5 for let's say 30 seconds. The result was okay but not good enough: I had sufficient highlight detail but not enough contrast. So the next print I added another 30 seconds grade 4,5 and the print came out exactly the way I wanted. Now my question: could I have saved myself time by printing in grade 3,5 for 60 seconds, for example? I know that I could have tried that, but I didn't because the question came to my mind much later.

Daniel

-- Daniel Janssen (nijjans@xs4all.nl), January 15, 2001

Answers

If the result you got is exactly right, then using a different contrast probably would give something less than that - different, anyway. If things are working as they should, grade 4.5 should not be the same as 3.5, regardless of exposure time. When you are fooling around with perfecting a print, considerations of time-saving need to be set aside or you'll only add to the frustration that's normal for such work.

-- Keith Nichols (knichols@iopener.net), January 15, 2001.

Daniel- Using several contrast grades within a single print (requires multi-contrast paper) is a very useful technique which you seem to have uncovered on your own. I don't think you will find the results of 60 secs at grade 3.5 the same as 30 sec with grage 2 and 30 seconds burning in at grade 4.5, particularly if the burning in only exposes part of the paper.

If the entire print is exposed to all of both exposures you might come up with something that is effectively grade 3.5 but, in my experience, looks different than a single exposure at the intermediate grade.

-- Don Karon (dkaron@socal.rr.com), January 16, 2001.