I Made A Print

Ian-Barber

Ian-Barber

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I managed to get a print made after testing, learning, more testing and more learning :)

flower003.jpg

This was my workflow, please trip me up if you feel I did it wrong.
I made a test strip from using a Grade 2 filter and chose 6 seconds as the base exposure rendering details in the flower.

After the 6 second exposure, I put in a Grade 0 filter and then with the dodge tool, blocked the light over the flowerr and exposed for a further 3 seconds to make the background a little darker
 
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David M

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That's a very elegant image. Well done.
An alternative procedure (and I don't say that it's better) would be to make a base exposure at a slightly higher grade, to get the background black sufficiently dark, which would leave the petals underexposed. Then burn in the petals at G-2 to maintain the delicacy.
Using a hole in a card to burn gives you a spotlight effect that's easier to see and control on the baseboard. You can "paint" the area very precisely. Even if you did overlap the background a little, it would make little perceptible difference to the already dark background.
Please bear in mind that I'm only suggesting this as another way to accomplish the same thing. No doubt others will be able to suggest their own systems. It's a delightful image.
 
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Alan Clark

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Registered User
Ian, I don't know if you have any books on darkroom printing. One I would recommend - a really excellent book - is Larry Bartlett's Black and White Photographic Printing Workshop. In my opinion this is much better than the Gene Nocon book that a lot of people rave about.
Bartlett won the Ilford Printer of the Year award several times and his methods, all described in the book, are really useful to know about.

Alan
 
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