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Photo Forum / Film Photography / Darkroom / June 2005Increase contrast
Probably a stupid question - I'm fairly new to this whole thing (although I love it!) - most of my posts on this board are probably stupid questions... But I digress. While on a plane flight over heavy cloud I took some pictures of the clouds. When I developed them my wife complained that there wasn't enough contrast between the light and dark parts of the clouds and between the clouds and the wing of the plane. The negatives are developed now. Given that, is there any way to increase the contrast on my paper prints or is this only something that can be done in the initial shoot? If so, how, so I can know for next time. Btw - I used fuji neopan 100 film. I don't remember what the negative developer was (although it was Ilford and in powder form). For paper developing I used Dektol and the paper was some proprietary paper from Adorama. > Probably a stupid question - I'm fairly new to this whole thing > (although I love it!) - most of my posts on this board are probably > stupid questions... As other have stated the only stupid question, is the one unasked. > But I digress. While on a plane flight over heavy cloud I took some > pictures of the clouds. When I developed them my wife complained that > there wasn't enough contrast between the light and dark parts of the > clouds and between the clouds and the wing of the plane. Result of the very blue green glass of the plane. > The negatives are developed now. Given that, is there any way to > increase the contrast on my paper prints or is this only something that > can be done in the initial shoot? If so, how, so I can know for next > time. You could have used a red, yellow or orange filter,....maybe even a UV filter. This assumes you are shooting B&W film. You can bump the magenta filtration up with a Color lamphouse or use a higher filter for printing using a condensor lamp house. > Btw - I used fuji neopan 100 film. I don't remember what the negative > developer was (although it was Ilford and in powder form). For paper > developing I used Dektol and the paper was some proprietary paper from > Adorama.  SignatureLF Website @ http://members.verizon.net/~gregoryblank "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918 Thanks for that. Is there any way to correct this in the printing process? With, maybe, some kind of filter (I've got a heap that I don't really know what to do with). If there is detail in the negative it can be brought out by a combination of normal dodging and burning and printing different parts of the negative with different contast filters. That is, if the clouds are too low in contrast try holding them back when printing in the wings, etc, and then printing that part using a grade or more harder filter. This is one thing you can do with variable contrast paper that can not be done with graded paper. For complex printing like this it is helpful to make masks of opaque paper for different areas of the print. Be patient because you may have to make several test prints before getting everything right. Richard Knoppow dickburk@ix.netcom.com > Probably a stupid question - I'm fairly new to this whole thing > (although I love it!) - most of my posts on this board are probably [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > developing I used Dektol and the paper was some proprietary paper from > Adorama. When you look at the negative can you differentiate the contrast in the clouds? Have you tried just printing "for clouds" in one print and then printing just for the "airplane wing" on another? This will tell you if you recorded on film what you wanted. The problem is that the paper isn't printing the two ranges that you saw with your eyes while sitting on the plane. Film has a much higher capacity for recording the image than what the paper can display. One solution to this is to make a mask of the airplane wing and then BURN the clouds (assuming they are darker on the negative). You definately have a problem on your hands. When I hit the same problem last year I found the easier solution was to scan the negative and fix the contrast difference in Photoshop. Depends how much work you want to do to get this print. You might also try split filtering given that you're probably using VC (variable contrast) paper. Use a Magenta printing filter to increase the contrast. > Probably a stupid question - I'm fairly new to this whole thing > (although I love it!) - most of my posts on this board are probably [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > developing I used Dektol and the paper was some proprietary paper from > Adorama. >> While on a plane flight over heavy cloud I took some >> pictures of the clouds. When I developed them my wife complained that [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Use a Magenta printing filter to increase the contrast. This is correct *IF* variable contrast (VC) paper is being used. When using graded papers, you'd switch to one with a higher grade (say, switch to grade 4 rather than grade 2). You can also adjust the paper development time, the paper developer used, the developer's dilution, etc. I don't yet have enough experience with print making or different print developers to offer specific suggestions for changes, though. SignatureRod Smith, rodsmith@rodsbooks.com http://www.rodsbooks.com Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking So far nobody asked you about the other negatives on your film, if any. Did you print them? How did those prints look like? Same problem? If all your negatives of that film print in a week contrast, then your film may be underdeveloped. Pity you can't tell us how you developed it! Jan | Probably a stupid question - I'm fairly new to this whole thing | (although I love it!) - most of my posts on this board are probably [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] | developing I used Dektol and the paper was some proprietary paper from | Adorama. Actually, looking at it - the negatives are fine - I suspect that my developer was just old. I'll try another print with fresh developer and will let you all know how it goes. rts |
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