I am a black and white printer struggling to obtain a good print of a log cabin (dark)against a light and cloudy sky. When I increase the contrast to improve the sky, the log cabin darkens and loses detail. When I reduce contrast, The foreground which is snow covered and gets muddy. I am using Ilford MG IV RC paper Dektol developer, Ilford Filters and a Beseler 23 C enlarger. Does anyone have any help to offer?

-- Howard Dvorin (HowardDvorin@cs.com), January 20, 2001

Answers

It sounds like a case where you need to experiment with dodging and burning in and/or employ split filtering to produce the desired effects. For example, you may need to print the cabin with a softer filter and burn in the sky with a harder filter. A good reference is The Variable Contrast Printing Guide by Steve Anchell.

-- Sam (sselkind@home.com), January 20, 2001.

This might be a case where latent image bleaching would help. There is an earlier thread on this subject. Print on a grade 4 paper and bleach in an extremely dilute ferricyanide solution before developing. This will give lots of snap in the high values while allowing you to see detail in the low values.

Another option might be to print for the sky values you want, then selectively bleach the cabin. You wouldn't want to reduce the low values too much, but the bleach would definitely increase contrast and bring out subtle detail.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edb@unblinkingeye.com), January 20, 2001.

Sounds to me as if you are not picking the right paper contrast. Print for the highlights and develop for the shadows. This means that you pick your exposure time by judging the important highlights and then look at the important dark areas. If the dark areas are too dark then reduce the contrast or if they are too light then increase the contrast. When doing this it is also necessary to retest for your highlights to find the correct exposure time. When filters say they are speed matched that means that they speed matched for medium gray not the highlights. Just last week I print a negative for someone else that was similar to what you described, an old church in shadow with snow on the ground and a bright sky. The negative was underexposed and overdeveloped also, I ended up printing on a grade 0 and made a quite nice print. You just need to get the exposure and contrast right.

-- Jeff White (jeff@jeffsphotos.com), January 20, 2001.

Howard, Okay, I am a printer too and have seen too many like this. Here's how I would go about it: Since the cabin is dark you simply can not use a high numbered filter on the sky, it will if you are using paper dodgers for the cabin instead of ruby red mask be effected by the light overspill, okay? What you have to do is use a low numbered filter for the sky's burn in while dodging both the cabin and the ground together. Here's how I would set it up: 1. Find the exposure for the cabin at whatever contrast you think works. 2. find the exposure for the sky at a lower contrast you think works. 3. Print in the sky while dodging the cabin and the ground covered snow. 4. Print the entire scene at the exposure and contrast for the cabin and snow. 5. (Tweaking) The sky should be slightly overexposed. What you have to do now is find how much of the sky exposure to take away to get the look you want. Good luck and I hope I have helped in some way. -Kevin the verbose

-- Kevin the verbose (veilofgrey@globalfrontiers.com), February 02, 2001.

Avoiding the halo.

Howard, I shot a wedding once in which the brides gown was so bright that when I printed for her facial tones, (black and white), the design in the dress was hidden. What I did was to take water from the tap in my kitchen, as hot as I could make it, put it in a smaller pan and put some Dektol in a glass in the pan and waited for it to heat. When the Dektol was as warm as it could get, I used cotton balls, dipped in the hot Dektol, and as soon as I began souping the print, I rubbed the cotton ball on the dress area. Dress came out excellent and the facial tones were right on. You'll have to experiment a bit, but it worked fine. Hope this helps. Dave

-- H. David Huffman (craptalk@lvcm.com), April 14, 2001.