Black and white printing induction

Black and white film printing process

In our induction to black and white film printing we were given a tour of the darkroom, shown how to create contact sheets and shown how the enlargers work. Once we had developed our film into negatives in the darkroom we could begin with the printing process. 

We then made contact sheets of our negatives so we could choose which photograph we wanted to make a print of. 

Next we made a test strip of one of our photos too set the correct exposure. I set the aperture to F/8 and then I exposed the whole of the paper for five seconds and then blocked out sections of the image for another five seconds each. I repeated this step five more times till the whole of the paper had been covered. From looking at the test strip I decided to expose this negative for 15 seconds.

I was pleased with the exposure time as I liked how there was a nice contrast to the image which made it stand out. However I felt some areas were over exposed. 

After we made our first final print we were introduced to using filters in the printing process.  To use the filters you first have to exposure your paper for the correct time (mine was fifteen seconds) and then apply the filters as separate exposures. First, I used a grade zero filter for five seconds, this was too add detail in the white areas so theres more tone in the picture. I then used a grade two filter for ten seconds to add slightly more contrast to the image so it stands out more.

I wanted there to be more detail in the white areas in the image so I decided to use the grade zero filter for seven seconds instead of five. I decided to keep the grade two filter at ten seconds as I like the contrast it gave the image. This time I also added a grade five filter at ten seconds to bring out the black areas in the image.

Next I choose to increase the grade zero even more to ten seconds to bring out the detail even more. I still kept the grade two filter at ten seconds to add contrast to the image. I felt the black areas in the image looked to dark so I decreased the grade five filter to five seconds instead of ten.

This is my final image. In comparison to the first final print I made it is a lot better as there is more tone to the image which makes the photo look more realistic. By using the different grade filters I have bought the detail out in the white areas and made the black areas in the image stand out.

I decided to print another picture, I choose this image as I liked the way the brush was on its side and was casting a shadow on the surface it’s on. First, I made a test strip, I covered each section for five seconds.

From the test strip I decided to expose the print for thirteen seconds as it looked like the correct exposure.

For the next print I decided to use a grade two filter with a thirteen second exposure to increase the contrast of the picture. I felt the edges of the picture were too over exposed so I decided to use dodging to bring them out a bit. To do the dodging technique I used a grade zero filter with a ten second exposure time and then used a piece of blue tac on a piece of wire to block out the centre of the image whilst the papers being exposed. 

I felt that the edges looked too dark so I decided to only use the dodging technique at grade 0 for six seconds. By decreasing the time by four seconds it has made a big improvement to the image and has given it a more natural feel as the edges are more lighter compared to the images before.