Basics of Photographic Printing

A fundamental but thorough approach

The students of my photography class and I had The picture was taken in downtown Detroit at the
started our second day in the darkroom. We had just old and abandoned railway station, which once was a
developed contact sheets from previously processed beautiful example of early 20th century architecture.
film and were about to select a negative to learn basic Unfortunately, it is now a ruin, fenced in and boarded
photographic printing. The negative I proposed had up to prevent unwanted entrance. The city of Detroit
never been printed before, and therefore, it was a bit
of an experience for all of us. Most instructors shy
away from using a ‘new’ negative in this situation.
They feel that exploring the potential of a negative
and teaching basic printing at the same time may
conflict. It may also generate confusion and may lose
the educational value, which comes with a prepared
and well-organized session. I cannot disagree with
that viewpoint, but I feel confident enough to believe
that a structured operating sequence will tackle any
negative. This particular negative did not seem to
contain any unusual challenges.
Photographic printing is primarily art and only
secondarily science. Turning the negative film im-
age into a well-balanced positive print, with a full
range of tones and compelling contrast, can be
time-consuming and occasionally frustrating, unless
a well thought-out printing sequence is considered.
Optimizing a print by trial and error is rarely sat-
isfying and often leads to only mediocre results. A
structured printing technique, on the other hand,
will quickly reveal the potential of a negative. The
method described here is a valuable technique for
beginning and more experienced printers alike, and
with individual modifications, it is used by many
printers today. I have been taught this structured
technique by master printers such as John Sexton
and Howard Bond, who use it themselves. It works
well in almost all cases but should be viewed as, and
understood to be, a guideline and not a law. Use the
technique to get started, but feel free to modify it, in
order to develop your personal printing style.

Basics of Photographic Printing 31

fig.1 The test strip shows the same
area of the image with increasing
exposure from right to left to
determine highlight exposure.
Use f/stop timing and make a
series of test strips to determine
the optimum highlight exposure.
Then, expose a full-sheet test
print to check and adjust the
global contrast.
The result is the first work print,
having the best exposure and
contrast to render significant high-
lights and shadows as intended.
It becomes the basis for all sub-
sequent image manipulations to
optimize the print.
32 Way Beyond Monochrome
is concerned about the structural integrity of the
building. Nonetheless, it is refuge to some homeless
people. The inside of the building shows clear signs
of vandalism and decades of decay, but the former
beauty is still visible to the trained photographic eye.
The image was taken with a Hasselblad 501C and a
Carl Zeiss Planar 2.8/80 at f/11 with an exposure time
of 1/2 second on TMax-100. It was then developed
normally in Xtol 1+1 for 8 minutes.
Before we get started, let me share my thoughts
about electronic darkroom aids. I use an electronic f/
stop timer and find it extremely useful. I also own a
practical darkroom lightmeter, but it is only used to
get the base exposure and contrast within the ‘ball
park’. Highly sophisticated darkroom meters, which
promise quality one-off prints, only add their own
set of challenges. On the other hand, one simple test
strip provides invaluable information throughout the
entire print session and takes relatively little effort. I
prefer to determine the optimum print exposure and
contrast, while comparing a properly made test strip
to others that are just too light, dark, soft or hard. I
feel uncomfortable blindly trusting a machine, which
dictates a one-and-only setting, without ever getting
a chance to evaluate alternatives. We are well advised
not to replace skill with technology, otherwise crafts-
manship will deteriorate. Producing a truly fine print
demands the manual ‘exploration’ of the whole negative.
Especially beginners are better off investing the time
to improve their skills, rather than compensating for
the lack thereof with overly sophisticated technology.
Otherwise, they will develop a dependency that will
undoubtably condemn them, and their prints, to an
undeserved mediocrity. Fine-art printing is a skill, pa-
tiently acquired by training, not just another repetitive
process that would benefit from complete automation.
Expose for the Highlights
The old axiom for preparing high-quality negatives is
‘expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights’.
It is still valid today. Having learned from the last
two chapters, we will modify this rule for preparing
high-quality prints to ‘expose for the highlights and
control the shadows with contrast’.
Our first test strip in fig.1 is made for the highlights
only. In this example, the model’s top is the most
prominent and important highlight in this image,
which is why this area of the print was chosen for the
7 6 5 4 3 2 1
28.5s 25.6s 22.6s 20.2s 18.0s 16.0s 14.3s
test strip. With this test, we will only concentrate on
the proper exposure for the highlights. Grade 2, a
slightly soft default contrast for diffusion enlargers,
was used. The beginning, and sometimes even the
experienced, printer has a difficult time to keep from
judging the contrast in the first test strip as well. We
will resist all temptation to make any evaluation about
contrast in the first test strip and wait for a full sheet
to do so. For now, all we are interested in is getting
the best exposure time for the delicate highlights.
The test strip shows increasing exposure times
from the right at 14.3 s to the left at 28.5 s, in 1/6-stop
increments at a constant aperture of f/11. This group
of students felt that the model’s top was slightly too
light in step 5 (22.6 s) and slightly too dark in adjacent
step 6 (25.4 s). We consulted the f/stop timing chart
and settled for an exposure time of 24.0 s, while still
ignoring the shadows.
Control the Shadows with Contrast
Proper global contrast can only be appropriately
evaluated on a full sheet exposure. Consequently, we
exposed a full sheet, still using grade 2, now that we
had the correct highlight exposure.
I prefer to conduct exposure and contrast evalua-
tions under fairly dim incandescent light. A 100-watt
bulb about 2 m (6 feet) away will do fine. Fluorescent
light is too strong and will most likely result in prints
that are too dark under normal lighting conditions.
Our first full sheet in fig.2 was declared to be too
dull and too weak in the shadows. It needed a bit more
contrast. Another sheet, fig.3, was exposed at grade 2.5,

but the exposure was kept constant to maintain high-
light exposure. The 1/2-grade increase in contrast made
a significant difference and any further increase would
have turned some of the shadows, in the dark clothing,
into black without texture. The global contrast was
now fine, but further work was necessary.
Direct the Viewer’s Eye
The human eye and brain have a tendency to look at
the brighter areas of the image first. We can create a
far more expressive print if we can control the viewer’s
eye. This can be accomplished by highlighting the
fig.2 (far left) This is the first full-sheet
test print with proper exposure
to the highlights. The overall
contrast of grade 2 is too weak.
fig.3 (left) Here the contrast has been
raised to grade 2.5, adding more
strength to the shadows, but
now, the light wall above the
model’s head is too distracting.
areas of interest and tuning areas with less informa-
tion value down. Dodging and burning are the basic
techniques to do so.
The light wall above the model’s head in fig.3
is drawing too much undeserved attention. The
viewer is most likely distracted by it and may even
look there first. We would like the viewer to start
his visual journey with the model, which is the main
feature of this image.
In fig.4 and fig.5, an attempt was made to dim the
distracting part of the wall down. Fig.4 received the
base exposure of 24.0 s at grade 2.5 and an additional
fig.4 (far left) The top wall is burned-
in for an additional 1/3 stop.
fig.5 (left) The top wall is burned-in
for an additional 2/3 stop.
Basics of Photographic Printing 33
fig.6 (right) the printing map +1/ +2/3
3

-1/3
f/11
24.0s
grade
2.5

+1/3

fig.7 (far right) the final image +1/3

prior to toning

exposure of 1/3 stop (6.2 s) to the upper wall by using
a burning card. Fig.5 received a similar treatment, but
this time the additional exposure to the wall was 2/3
stop (14.1 s). Two things are worth mentioning at this
point. I don’t perform these burn tests on a full sheet
but do it with smaller pieces in the areas of interest,
and I usually perform at least two, so I can establish
a trend. This shows us that the right side of the wall
was about right in tonality, but the left side was still
too bright. From the two samples, I estimated that an
additional 1/3 stop was required on the left to match
the tonality across the top wall.
The face of the model seemed a bit too dark to
attract immediate attention. Therefore, I dodged
the face with a small dodging tool, for the last 4.9 s
(1/3 stop) of the base time, while rapidly moving it,
so not to leave any visible marks. To attract further
attention to the model, a 1/3-stop edge-burn to the
right and lower side was applied. All of the exposures
were collected into the printing map shown in fig.6.
This is done first on little pieces of scrap paper or on
the back of the print. After the darkroom session, it
is recorded onto a print card, which is filed with the
negative for future use.
The results are shown in fig.7 and in the lead
picture. With a few methodical steps a much more
communicating image was achieved. The viewer’s eyes
are not left to aimlessly wander, and the model is not
obscurely blending into her surroundings anymore.
The model is now clearly the main focus of atten-
tion, and the background has been demoted to the
important, but secondary, function of supporting and
emphasizing the difference between the urban decay
and the young woman’s beauty.

Preparing additional test strips, to As a very effective alternative, prepare

determine the best exposure deviations additional full-sheet test prints with
for dodging and burning, can be labori- -1/3, +1/3 and +2/3-stop exposures or as
ous, but optimized print manipulation required. These allow for more educated
remains pure guesswork without them. guesses and save time and paper.

34 Way Beyond Monochrome