To follow up on Ann Clancy's question on unsharp masking and selective dodging, does anyone in this forum use either of these techniques? Are they worth the hassle? I have been considering trying selective dodging since it is less involved, but am curious about the experience of others. Also, how workable are these methods on formats other than large format?

-- Jim Rock (jameswrock@aol.com), January 18, 2002

Answers

They are definitly worth the hassle, if you want greater control of the middle tones you will be wise to learn how to use them, of course if you are the digital type, you can get all these techniques with photoshop, I mainly enjoy the darkroom work. One thing, they are control techniques, not fixer uppers, if you have a bad negative you might improve it with these techniques, but it will not yield the same print as a negative properly exposed.

-- Jorge Gasteazoro (jorgegm58@prodigy.net.mx), January 18, 2002.

Also, it is probably not practical to build masks for 35mm. You can make a registration carrier for 6x7, but 4x5 will be easier. It is a time consuming process, especially at the start-up, so it's not worth doing except for the very best pictures. Quite often, the effects produced by contrast reduction masking can be accomplished by flashing. ------ricardo

-- Ricardo (ricardospanks1@yahoo.com), January 22, 2002.

Contrast masking has been done for decades on 35mm and larger formats by color print workers. It is the standard remedy for pre-print pre-production color slide materials when used in magazines and color separation work. This is not an inexpensive method at 35mm though. You need a very precise negative registration system and a thorough knowlege of masking exposure and development. I agree that flashing both of the film and the paper may be a better way to go. If you want to pursue this further then radeka.com may be for you. James

-- bigmac (james_mickelson@hotmail.com), January 22, 2002.