After a long hiatus I have started printing in the darkroom again. I set up my little corner down in the basement and it has been great fun. I don’t mind the hybrid workflow with scanners and photoshop, and it sure is faster and easier to get the look that you want, but scanning always does something with the grain that doesn’t look too great when enlarged. And there is something with the blacks that you get with a real silver halide print. On a good quality paper it just goes blacker than black, which I love.
But as I said I’ve been on a decade long hiatus and it took me quite a while to get back into the groove. While remembering all the skills I have lost during the years, I came up with this list of tips or pointers that I wanted to write down, mostly for my own sake, so that I can return to these if I have another long hiatus.
Pre-printing checklist
Calibrate your grain focuser. If you have a Paterson one, there is a straight line through the image when you look into it. There is a small screw near the eyepiece, loosen it and adjust the eyepiece until the black line is perfectly in focus. Also remember to use the mirror cover, and don’t drop this thing onto the floor. It is very sensitive
Make sure your enlarger and easel is level. You might have an enlarger that rotates. If you have had it stashed away or transported it recently, it might have moved from it’s perfect downward position. Give it a quick check. If the paper is not exactly level with the lens you will not get good results across the image
Get fresh chems. If you have some half filled bottle with developer from 10 years ago, just throw it away (not down the drain, please). Start with chemicals that you know work. No point in making things difficult for yourself. All things considered, the chemicals needed are cheap. Don’t overthink the developer, get something popular, they are all good. Avoid speciality developers like warm/coldtone developers
Get fresh paper. If you have some paper from the 70s your grandpa gave you when he retired that you have been holding on to, that’s great, but start with something you know works. There is no point in making things difficult for yourself. Don’t mess around with different brands of paper and especially different sizes of paper. Pick one, I suggest 18x24cm Ilford RC Multigrade. Having different variables will make it difficult to get consistent results, and learning a paper and a size takes a while. Too small paper and burning/dodging is really difficult. Too large and the cost will make you think twice and three times before you try something out
Techniques
Fixed grade paper is easier than Multigrade paper is easier than Split grade filtering. But one technique does not fit all. I use all three. Sometimes I just want a straight print off a negative I know prints well in Grade 3 and it is not a difficult negative to print. It is really nice to have a print ready in a matter of seconds with fixed grade paper. But if you don’t want to have a big stash of paper, go multigrade! And learn how to do split grade filtering. I am not going into it in this post, since it is not a topic suitable for a couple of sentences of explaination
Stop bath chemicals are optional, you can use water instead for normal development. This advice is only valid for normal development, with stuff like lith printing you DO need a stop bath
Timing and temperature of development is non-critical. You can develop for too long, but 10, 20, 30 seconds longer than the recommended time (that is on the bottle) does not matter enough to warrant thinking about it. Keep your chems at room temp and you will be fine too. Don’t let them get hot nor cold
Waste test strips! Rip off strips of the paper and check exposure time, contrast, etc on the test strips. Do not be afraid to do test strips! Don’t waste entire sheets of paper. Put in the entire sheet when you know for sure what you want to do. Don’t go freestyling with entire sheets
Equipment
The lens in the enlarger matters more than the enlarger itself. A good quality print depends on good quality glass. It is like a camera but in reverse, the rest is just a lightbulb and a bellows on a rack. It does not really impact image quality at all. But the lens is everything. Get the best lens you can afford, since it is very unlikely you will ever need another one. Personally I use the Rodagon 50/2.8 and I think it’s fantastic
For the final wash you can use a big tub of water, you don’t need anything fancy. I use a plastic box that I just fill up with water. Remember to wash prints properly, you don’t want all of you prints to be all yellow a few years down the line. I give the prints a quick pre-wash in the water bath that I also use as a “stop bath” after the fixing to get rid of the majority that is still on the paper. I change this “stop bath” often and the larger wash tub less often. I don’t have access to running water close to the enlarger unfortunately
General
If every roll you shoot is a different type of film, the darkroom work will be more of a hassle. Using something tried and trusted for your critical work is key. I forget this often times and I have almost exclusively shot a bunch of weird emulsions the past year and now in the darkroom I regret this. I wish they were all just fp4 and hp5..
Show your pictures. Don’t just put on instagram. A good photo should be enjoyed in a larger format than instagram. Take your best prints, put in a box and go over to a friend and show them