BW photography percentages

["BIRKEY, DUANE" <dbirkey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

While I agree that much can be done in the darkroom to make decent 
prints from lousy negatives.  The highest quality prints come from good 
negatives that are properly exposed and developed and printed on the 
right contrast paper to begin with.  

I have spent many hours trying to make high quality prints from poor 
negatives taken by other people and I frankly hate having to do it.  I 
spend far less time printing my own stuff with a whole lot better 
results.  I do a lot of burning and dodging to bring certain areas up 
or down on the tonal scale to get the total effect I want.  But working 
with underexposed, nearly clear negatives will never produce super 
prints.  If you're good and you work at it you can make acceptable 
ones.

High quality BW images start with initial photographic technique and 
composition to produce a hopefully near perfect negative.  Sloppy 
darkroom room work will either ruin the image on film or obscure it by 
poor printing technique.  Good printers can improve poor composition 
through cropping and adjust contrast etc. to improve quality, but it 
all starts with the negative. I find that I often change the image in 
the darkroom considerably during the entire process. 

For those shooting BW positives, colored filters are the only 
manipulation you can do.  Unless of course you make twin prints first 
and copy them.  Of course you'd better tone down the print contrast if 
your going to do that.

Duane Birkey Quito Ecuador South America   


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End of PHOTO-3D Digest 1210
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