It is a very rare instance that the exposure and lighting of a negative is such that all areas will print perfectly with the same exposure in the enlarging process. Usually there are some areas that are too light or dark even though the majority of the print is of the proper tone. Because of this the photographer must use special techniques to achieve the overall effect that will make a high quality print.

What is a good quality print? —A good print must be made on paper grade that best matches the contrast of the negative. For example a flat negative must be matched with a higher grade of paper such as #3 or #4. A very contrasty negative may require #1 paper. A quality print must of course be in sharp focus and the tones should range from a good black to a clean white in the highlights with a full range of greys in between. The print may be predominately "low key" (dark tones) or "high key" (light tones) but in each there should be both a black and white. If it does not reach the entire range try a higher contrast paper.

CROPPING—Cropping is a necessity in making prints from negatives that have been hastily made. Many photographs have to be shot fast, allowing no time for careful balance of the elements of the picture. In making pictures of sports, news, action, industry, special events, etc., the important consideration is to capture the significance of the event. Composition in the camera, in many instances, must be sacrificed for speed.

Projection printing affords the best opportunity for effective cropping. The projected negative as viewed on the enlarging easel can be manipulated, composed and altered to fit the format of the enlarging paper of the size needed for the publication. The scale enlarging of enlargement can be increased or decreased which will shift the picture area on the easel. Also adding or eliminating parts of the negative may impair or improve the composition. Prints that have already been made (without due consideration for improving composition during enlarging) may be improved by cropping the print directly.

Cropping is always used to advantage in eliminating uninteresting or distracting detail, especially in the foreground. Effective cropping can also:

1. Shift emphasis from one are of the picture to another, or give added emphasis to the center of interest.
2. Balance composition that has not been properly composed at the time of shooting.
3. Add a feeling of motion to shots that are otherwise static.
4. Produce a picture within a picture.

The first step in making a print will require one or more test strips of varying time intervals to determine the proper exposure. Once the correct exposure on a segment of a test strip has been determined, it then is a good practice to make a full length test strip of one exposure, which includes a large and important are of print. If this final test strip proves satisfactory then make a full size print. The enlarged print may be all right but in most instances it will have some small areas in the shadow or highlight areas that need exposure control on second print. Listed here are some special techniques that will enable you to produce the desired quality.

Many times when printing, white lines or spots will show up on the print. While spots can be scratches or dust can be removed by the use of air or by some sort of scratch remover. The best air static free air like dry nitrogen or dust off. Blow off the negative in the carrier and gently place it back in the enlarger. Scratches that are white can be removed by the use of nose or face grease but not make up. Rub your nose enough to pick up some grease and gently rube the non-emulsion side of the negative if this does not get rid of the scratches, then use a scratch remover which is in a liquid fore. Film cleaner will leave a residue and can harm the film surface if not used properly.

1. Burning in—is the process of adding more exposure in a given area. To do this you may use a flexible card, your hands or a hole cut in a card. There are also special tools that can be adjusted to form the shape to match the area to receive increased exposure. Whatever the device used, it is held between the lens and the paper and moved while the light is projected to increase the exposure of the local area on the print. Often the exposure time for the "burned in" area may be several times that of the normal exposure of the print. It is good practice to place a test strip over the area to be burned and make a test to determine proper exposure. This will save waste of full size paper and often save time.
2. Dodging—is the process of holding back exposure from certain areas that are printing to dark. A flexible card or your hands may be used for larger areas in the corners or sides of the prints. For small areas pieces of card fastened to a thin wire may be used. These are called dodging tools. It is important that dodging and burning in be carried out with constant movement of the device used. If not done in this manner, sharp outlines will show where the manipulation took place.
3. Contrast control—is the process of slightly altering the contrast without changing paper grades. This may be done by decreasing development time and increasing exposure, which will flatten the overall tones. Increased contrast of the print may be done by increasing the developing time.
4. Flashing—is used when it is desired to flatten the contrast. If the negative is of high contrast the flashing will not turn the dark areas any darker, but will shade or soften the glaring white areas of the print. It is done by exposing the enlarging paper to raw light of the enlarger with the negative removed. It is a second exposure. The first was made with the negative image in the regular manner. The lens should be stopped down to the smallest opening when flashing. The time will vary from negative to negative but a good starting time is one second. If not sufficient alter the time on a second print.
5. Local development controls—may be used in addition or separate from local exposure controls mentioned to change the tonal values of certain areas of the print. If a given area requires more development you can blow air from your mouth on the spot which will hasten the development of that area. Another method is to rub you fingers both the back side and front over the desired area. Care must be taken in any forced development of this type to prevent a chemical stain as a result of overdevelopment. Still another technique to use to spot develop local areas is to have at hand a small container of concentrated developer (stock solution) and a small piece of cotton. With it you can rub the area to increase the development. Some times rather than increase development of local areas it is necessary to decrease development. A good way to do this is to swab the part requiring less development with water. If one complete side of the print is developing much too fast in relation to the rest of the print you can dip or swab this side in water to halt the developing action while the rest of the print area continues to develop. Once the entire print is in an equal stage of development then the entire surface may be placed in the developer to continue the development. Occasionally a stop bath. Once this is done though it is impossible to further development again if you wish, such as you can when you slow development with water application.
6. Spot exposure—during development may be done with a pen light to blacken small white spots in a totally black area. A good example of the need for this would be the white spots created in a print of a night football game by the field lights. These white spots may be burned out by directing a very small beam of light from a small pen light, covered with a black papercone, on to the white spots as they appear during development. Great care must be taken not to fog the print by the light. Other distracting white areas may be flashed by this manner, providing there is no need to image detail. If image detail is required then burning in during exposure will be necessary.

All of the printing techniques discussed here require careful workmanship and your attempts may have to be repeated, but without them most prints of expert quality could not be produced. It is important that you practice them and put them to use.

 

7. Corners and edges can be darkened-in this operation a piece of cardboard, similar to the one used for darkening the sky, is used. Endeavor to produce a natural and gradual darkening of the corners and sides by starting at the edge of the print and moving the cardboard toward the center of the picture, stopping at the edge of the area to be darkened. Give more exposure to the edges and less as the cardboard is moved toward the center. Keep the card moving all the time. Repeat this operation as may be needed in other areas of the print.

Generally prints should be sharp, brilliant and rich in detail. However, there are times when a soft appearance is wanted. Prints can be improved by use of a diffusion screen or a texture screen. Both of these hid detail and decrease contrast. Unretouched portraits can be improved and made more presentable by the use of these screens. To use simply hold the screen between the lens and easel during part or all of the exposure.

Commercial diffusers can be bought but most photographers make them from wrinkled cellophane, cheesecloth, or pieces of silk stockings. The degree of diffusion can be controlled by the placement of the diffuser underneath the lens of the enlarger. Diffusion will be greatest when the diffuser is held close to the enlarging paper, less if it is held near the lens. Exposure should be increased a small amount when diffusing. Texture effect can be achieved by placing a silk cloth, cheesecloth or other translucent texture material over the project image. Texture screens are used many times to hide a flaw in a negative. Another ver interesting effect is to hold a magnifying glass between the lens and easel during printing and move it slightly.

The camera lens normally forms an image, which is a true representation in scale and perspective of the real elements of the scene or subject in front of it. Any alteration in the shape or proportions of the normal image at any stage of the photographic process is known as distortion. Some types are beyond the control of the camera user due to defects in the lens or the position of view.

Other types of distortion can be deliberately produced for novel effects or to produce a more pleasing representation of the subject when correcting for unintentional distortion caused by the camera. In this unit you are going to try to produce intentional distortions by one or more of the procedures described. Your fun will have to be made with very sharp, clear, and distinct negatives. The others won’t work. You may try to make pinheads and flatheads out of people, make buildings higher or shorter, and any other types that appeal to your liking. Here are some methods for distorting pictures:

1. Wide angle lens distortion: A wide-angle lens by its physical characteristics creates unnatural effects in a picture. Even greater distortion can be made with it use by focusing close to the subject, i.e. focus on a person with an arm, log or facial feature extended extremely close to the lens. A very natural effect will result.
2. Reflected distortion: Try photographing a subject that is reflected from a trick mirror or a bent shiny metal surface such as a large ferrotype tin. Be careful when doing this to avoid glare spots.
3. Tilting or bonding the easel surface: This is a very easy and popular way to create all kinds of distortion. Subject matter can be elongated or shortened by raising one end of the ease. Another way is to bend the paper over a rounded bottle or block of wood, or you might try cupping the paper by raising both ends. It is also possible to create a twisted effect by raising part and both ends. Another possible way to create a twisted effect is by raising part and cupping part of the paper. When setting up for this experiment practice focusing on a plain sheet of paper in order to determine the effect desired. CAUTION: Because a projected image is in focus on only on place it is necessary when printing to stop the lens all the way down so as to get as much depth of focus as possible.
4. Tilting the lens or negative carrier: Some enlargers are made so that he lens can be tilted out of parallel alignment with the negative. This can be used to correct unintentional negative distortion such as receding lines, which should be parallel but are not. It can just as well be used to create the negative carrier out of parallel alignment if your enlarger will permit it. CAUTION: Stop the lens all the way down when printing in order to have enough depth of focus.
5. Printing and masking: This process is done by printing a part of the image while masking the rest. For example a person’s neck should be made very long by first exposing the head portion, then mask or dodge that are while printing a portion to the neck. Next move the easel and print the neck again as many times as desired while masking the rest. Finally the rest of the body is printed.
6. Melting and film emulsion: Try heating the emulsion until it begins to run. Cool and print. (This will ruin the negative for normal use.)

The simple technique of vignetting can help you to make attractive prints. When you vignette you print through a hole in a cardboard. In the resulting print the image should fade into the white background.

Vignetting is usually done to a head and shoulder portrait but it can be used for other subjects. Vignetters can be bought that the size of the opening can by adjusted. The simplest method is to cut a hole in a piece of cardboard in the shape of the image that you want to print. The cardboard will work best when it is slightly larger than the paper being printed on. The size of opening will vary according to the size of the print. For 5x7’s the opening should be the size of a quarter. Larger sizes require larger openings.

The vignetter should be move up and down when making the exposure. This prevents a sharp line at the edge of the print and will allow a gentle fading of the print into the background. Do not vignette a negative with a light background.

Many times a continuous tone (white, grey and black) photograph can be made more interesting by making it into a tone drop-out. The result is an image composed of only black and white tones. When all of the greys are rendered either white or black it is called a tone drop. The dark tones become black and the light ones become white. Thus the term "tone drop-out" is applied. Ortho type film is used for this as it produces high contrast and will readily drop-out any greys. Ortho film develper or dektol paper developer can be used to develop the image. Ortho type film can also be processed under red-orange safe lights.

Some pictures lend themselves quite well to this process while others do not. In general a picture will be effective as a tone drop-out which has good detail, well balanced tones and subject matter that dominates the format. A tone drop-out is very useful as a means of analyzing the composition of a picture. Since it separates the image into segment of black and white it is possible to better study the arrangement of the main elements of composition. Any tone drop-out can be easily reversed from positive to negative form. This sometimes makes it even more appealing.

After a print has been made it usually needs spotting. It is important, however, that you take every care in the processing to prevent the spots, as it is much easier to prevent them than trying to cover them up by spotting techniques. Always take extreme care to keep all negatives clean and free from dust and fingerprints. Also be sure that the lens and condensers of your enlarger are spotlessly clean by going over them with lens cleaning tissue. If you have a negative which cannot be cleaned or touched up satisfactorily it is possible to minimize printing spots by these methods: (1) Use a matte finish paper rather than glossy; (2) Use a cold light (diffusion type) enlarger rather than a condenser type; (3) Try spreading a very thin film of vaseline over the surface of the negative before printing—it works wonders for small scratches; (4) Print it with a slight soft focus or diffuse the image.

The fact remains that there are usually some resulting spots that must be eliminated on the completed print.

Use fresh chemicals and clean containers and utensils throughout.

1. Stop Bath: Drain print for a few seconds after development, then put it face-up in the stop bath and agitate for about 30 seconds.
2. First Fixer (Sodium thiosulfate formulas such as Kodak Fixer or Kodak F-5 or F-6): Drain print after the stop bath, then put face-up in the fixer. Agitate constantly for a timed four minutes. Don’t turn on a white light until the print has been in the hypo for two minutes.
3. Holding Tray: Drain print after first fixer and put it face-up in a tray filled with water. As you print, add each print to the holding tray. Change the water often to keep hypo from building up in the tray and bleaching the prints, which should also be separated and agitated each time you change water. They stay in this tray until you have put your last print through the first fixer.
4. Set up for the second hypo and a water rinse: Pour fixer 1 back into its bottle and write on a piece of tape on the bottle how many prints have been through it (this tells you when to change to fresh fixer).

Rinse the fixer tray and pour in fixer. Put a tray of water beside it.

5. Second Fixer: Put the prints in the fixer one by one, face up, in a steady rhythm—one print every two or three seconds. Be sure each print is completely immersed before you add the next.

When the last print is in, pull out the bottom print and put it face-down on top of the pile. Using the same rhythm as when putting the prints in the fixer, pull each print in turn from the bottom and put it face-down on top, until they are all face-down.

Keep on, alternating a face-up cycle with a face-down one, for the whole four minutes fixing time. Then, in the same rhythm, put the prints in the water tray.

Pour fixer 2 into its bottle and write down the print count.

6. Water Rinse: Rinse the prints in running water, agitating by rotation as in the second fixer, for five minutes. Change the water two or three times as this is done to get rid of excess fix.
7. Washing Aid: Treat the prints for five minutes in a working—strength washing-aid bath such as Kodak Hypo Clearing Agent, Heico Perma Wash, or Edwal Hypo Eliminator, agitating by rotation for the whole time. There are several other such products.

They all work, but in my experience the wash times recommended in the instructions are fiction, not data. Kodak Hypo Clearing Agent (KHCA for short) probably makes the least exaggerated claims. Some of the others are very tall stories.

8. Wash: It helps to have a print washer that takes care of separating and agitating prints and of circulating and removing water. Otherwise washing is the most tediously laborious part of printing. But if you value you prints, take no short cuts.

1. Focus with enlarger lens closed down on stop from widest opening. This prevents any focus shift that might occur when closing lens down two stops—which is where you should set it for optimum results when printing.
2. When focusing on sample sheet, use the same paper thickness that you will use when printing. Again, this prevents focus shift.
3. When using hands to burn in an area, work fairly close to enlarger lens to prevent light from spilling over hands and affecting areas not meant to go darker.
4. After giving necessary proper exposure to each area, burn in edges of print all around to subdue unwanted detail and draw the eye to center of interest.
5. To provide a softening effect when grain is very apparent, take a swatch of nylon hosiery and stretch it over enlarging lens. You can hold it in place with a rubber band. Make half you exposure with (and half wiohout0 the hose, so you don’t lose to much contrast.
6. While the usually recommended procedure is to mix one part developer with two parts water (some professionals use 1:1), these prints were made with straight stock solution to give an edge to the contrast. Dektol is best, and development should be for 2 minutes with occasional agitation.
7. If you want some tone in a white area, use a separate container of warm developer (about 80-85 degrees F), daub only the desired area with a cotton swab, and then sink the print right back in the developer tray. This is not for detail, but just to "gray in" an area. Be careful warm developer does not run onto rest of print.
8. When applying potassium terricyanide, do not use an artist’s brush with a metal band around the bristles. This chemical reacts strangely to metal and may stain print a greenish yellow. Instead, try a Japanese paintbrush whose bristles are sunk into the bamboo handle and held there by a plastic band. Alternatively, you can coat metal band with clear nail polish.
9. Learn how different papers dry. Usually they dry darker than when wet, but this is not true of every surface.
10. When making exhibition prints, submerge thoroughly-washed print in selenium toner (diluted 10:1) for about 10 seconds; then rewash. This produces a cold, slightly bluish quality in the blacks while cleaning the whites even more. The black areas seem to go deeper.