Making a B&W print

A basic, step-by-step approach.

This section assumes you will be using a resin-coated (RC) variable contrast paper (the most popular type of black-and-white paper in use today) to make your print. Because it is variable contrast paper, you will need to have colored filters that change the color of the enlarger's light to adjust the paper's contrast, or a color enlarger which allows you to adjust the color head to dial in filtration that will simulate the effect of a colored filter. It also assumes that you have read the section entitled "Prepare to make a B&W print."

CHOOSE THE NEGATIVE YOU WOULD LIKE TO PRINT

Select the black-and-white negative you wish to print. If this is your first print-making experience, you may wish to keep things simple and select a negative that has average tonal ranges and no extreme contrast variations. Be sure it is clean and free of dust, then place it in the enlarger's negative holder. Slide the negative holder into place in the enlarger.

Place your easel on the baseboard, directly below the enlarger's lens. Ensure it has a clean, unmarked white surface. If not, load it with a piece of clean, white paper (normal, not photosensitive, paper) so that you will have an unmarked surface to use for focusing.

Ensure that your darkroom ventilation system is functioning. Insert your thermometer in the developing solution in the developer tray. Securely close the darkroom door. Switch off all room lights. Have a final look around to be sure there is no light whatever in the darkroom, then turn on the safelight.

TURN ON THE ENLARGER

Ensure that the enlarger's lens is set to its widest-open aperture so that the maximum amount of light shines through the negative onto the baseboard. Focusing is accomplished by adjusting the enlarger's lens, but sizing to fit the paper size is done by raising or lowering the enlarger head. Sizing must be done first.

Note: You do not always have to size the image so that the total negative frame fills the paper. You may wish to crop the image so that only a portion of the frame will be printed. You do this by raising the enlarger head so that the light passing through the negative spills over the sides of the easel, then move the easel on the baseboard until only the portion of the negative that you want to print is enclosed within it.

FOCUS THE IMAGE

Now, adjust the lens to focus the image. You may find that the sizing changes slightly when you achieve sharp focus, and you have to re-size, then re-focus to obtain the cropping that you want, in sharp focus.

There is a handy darkroom tool that assures you of the sharpest possible focus. It looks somewhat like a microscope. It magnifies the negative's image that is projected by the enlarger so that, by looking through it when it is placed dead-center on the easel, you can fine-tune the focusing by carefully adjusting the lens until you see the negative's grain structure come into sharp focus. It is called a "magnifier," a "grain focuser," or a "focus finder", and is a relatively inexpensive and very handy tool to have to ensure pinpoint sharpness.

ADJUST THE LENS' APERTURE

Set the aperture to /8. Why /8? Four reasons:
- Because it is small enough to ensure that your image will have even lighting and sharpness throughout, especially along its edges.
- Because it is not so small that you will need to use a very long exposure time.
- Because it is still bright enough so that you can see what you are doing.
- And because you are not ready to make the final print. You're going to make a test print first to determine what is the best exposure time for the final print. And /8 is a darn good starting point for a test print, because on average, you will need about ten seconds of exposure time at /8 to make a decent print. Anything shorter can be difficult to time accurately, and anything longer requires a lot of patience in waiting.

Note: When adjusting the aperture to change it to /8, this is a good time to become familiar with your equipment. Count the number of clicks it takes to go from full aperture to /8, then you will be able to do this more quickly in future, without looking up at the aperture ring.

INSERT A FILTER INTO THE ENLARGER

If you are using Ilford Multigrade filters, insert a Multigrade filter 2 into the enlarger's filter drawer or the filter holder located beneath the lens. Why a # 2? Because this filter provides a good tonal range with an average negative.

PLACE A SHEET OF PHOTOSENSITIVE PAPER IN THE EASEL

Ensuring that the room is in total darkness except for the illumination from the safelight, open your package of photosensitive variable contrast printing paper, and remove one sheet of the right size to fit your easel. Tightly re-seal the package and place it where it will remain in complete darkness.

Place the single sheet of paper in the easel, with its shiny side facing up. This is the side that contains the photosensitive emulsion layer.

EXPOSE A TEST PRINT

A test print involves making four multiple exposures of the same sheet of paper, but with portions of it progressively shielded from the light of each exposure so that you can assess the effect of differing exposure times, and determine how much exposure time is optimum. It may sound complicated, but it's not. It's actually quite simple.

You will need an opaque material, like a sheet of cardboard that is at least as large as the sheet of photosensitive paper (preferably slightly larger), to progressively block the light.

Test exposure # 1 - Switch on the enlarger\'s light, exposing the entire sheet to the light for two seconds.

Test exposure # 2 - Now, cover a quarter of the sheet with the opaque material, and switch on the enlarger's light for another two seconds.

Test exposure # 3 - Slide the opaque material over the sheet so that it now covers half of it, and expose the uncovered area of the sheet of paper for four seconds.

Test exposure # 4 - Finally, slide the opaque material so that it covers three-quarters of the sheet, and expose the remaining one-quarter of the sheet for eight seconds.

DEVELOP THE TEST PRINT

Check the thermometer in the developer tray to be sure that the temperature is 68F. (If it is not 68F, you will need to either warm it up or cool it down. You do this by emptying the tray's solution into the graduate, then holding most of the graduate in warmer or cooler water until the developer is 68F. Be sure that no water gets into the graduate.)

If you have a timer, set it to zero.

Smoothly slip the sheet of exposed paper quickly into the developer in the tray. Agitate it if you notice air bubbles on the shiny side's surface to remove the bubbles. Start the timer as soon as the sheet is immersed in the developer. If you don't have a timer and are using a second hand, immediately begin a 50-second countdown.

Gently rock the developer tray backwards and forwards in a continuous motion, constantly for the entire development process, so that the developer flows back and forth like a gentle wave across the sheet. The image should appear in under 30 seconds.

After 50 seconds, use tongs to lift the sheet of paper out of the developer solution. Hold it over the developer tray for about ten seconds to allow it to drain excess developer from its surfaces.

STOP DEVELOPMENT

Quickly and smoothly immerse the sheet into the stop bath (Note: if you began using a timer, immerse it when 60 seconds shows on the timer), taking care not to allow the developer tongs to come into contact with the stop bath solution in the tray. Place the tongs back in (or near) the developer tray. (Note: These tongs are only to be placed in the developer - no other chemical - to avoid contaminating the developer.)

Gently rock the stop bath tray for about 30 seconds. Use the second pair of tongs to grasp and lift the sheet from the stop bath. Hold it over the stop bath tray for the time it takes for most of the residual solution to drain from it, then place the sheet into the fixer solution.

FIXING THE PRINT

Rock the fixer tray for about 30 seconds. If the fixer is fresh, this may be all the time it takes to fix the print, depending on the make of fixer. Read the manufacturer's fixing instructions, though, because some fixers take longer. Remove the print from the fixer at the end of the fixing time.

Washing is the next step. (Note: If you ever intend to delay washing a print for a later time, don't leave it for more than a few extra minutes in the fixer. It may cause bleaching or image thinning. Remove it and place it in a tray of clean water until you are ready to properly wash it.)

EVALUATING THE TEST PRINT

Double-check to ensure that your supply of unused photosensitive paper is sealed in a light-proof container, then turn on the room light.

Rinse the test print in clear, running water. Since you probably won't keep this test print for any longer than it is needed, you don't have to thoroughly wash it.

Examine it in bright light. Each of the four strips it contains are one stop darker or lighter than the one(s) next to it. The lightest strip received only two seconds exposure. The next strip got four seconds; the third, eight seconds; and the last and darkest strip received 16 seconds of exposure.

One of the four strips will probably look like it received proper exposure to make a good print. If so, expose your final print using the exposure that this strip received.

WHAT IF NONE OF THE STRIPS LOOKS RIGHT?

This can happen. Here are the three possibilities:

(1) If one strip appears too dark and the one immediately next to it appears too light, then proper exposure will be somewhere in between the two strips.
(2) If all strips are too dark, stop down the aperture by one stop - i.e. from /8 to /11 - and repeat the test.
(3) If all strips are too light, open up the aperture by one stop - i.e. from /8 to /5.6 - and repeat the test.

MAKING THE FINAL PRINT

Switch off the room lights. (Your safelight is probably still on, but if not, you can switch it on.)

Take out a fresh sheet of photosensitive paper, and place it in the easel. Let us suppose your evaluation of the test print showed you should use an exposure of eight seconds at /8 to make a properly-exposed print. The aperture is already set at /8, so it is a simple matter of timing for eight seconds when you expose an entire sheet of photosensitive paper.

All other steps that you followed in processing the test print should be repeated, with the exception of the final step, when you merely rinsed the test print.

WASHING THE PRINT

The print should be washed for two minutes in a steady flow of clean water at about 68F - never lower than 41F. The water should be changed several times, which you can be sure of by tipping and emptying the wash tray a few times, then allowing it to fill up again.

DRYING THE PRINT

Remove the washed print from the water, and allow it to drain. Use a squeegee or clean sponge to gently remove excess water, then hang the print over the sink or a drip tray using a clip attached to a corner. In normal room temperature, the print should dry in around 15 to 30 minutes.

That's it. You have now made a black-and-white print.

Is that all there is to it? No, not by any means. But, you now know enough to get you started. Processing variations, problem-solving, darkroom creativity and more advanced printing techniques will be covered in new and upcoming sections.