Making a fine print

You are likely familiar with digital and inkjet printing to some degree. Technology has improved considerably in recent years, along with the development of improved archival inks. I offer only individually hand-made gelatin-silver prints. I’m not going to pass judgement on digital prints; you will judge for yourself what is most valuable to you. But let me share with you what goes into making a fine gelatin-silver print.

Once the film negative has been processed (which involves its own craft), a positive proof print is made by placing the negative directly in contact with the printing paper’s sensitized emulsion coating (similar to that of film’s) , pressing the two together with plate glass, and exposing the paper to light, through the negative, to obtain a positive image exactly the size of the negative. The proof, or contact print, is then developed, washed, and dried.

Getting from the proof to the final print is no simpler than getting from the printed score of a musical piece to a beautifully interpreted performance of note-symbols on a page. The photographer uses the contact print to begin his or her judgement of how to make additional contact prints (usually when the negative is already 8 x 10 inches or larger) or, as in my case, enlarged prints, such as (approximately) a 7 x 9 or 10 x 13 from a 4 x 5 or smaller negative.

The enlarged print is made by placing the film negative into a holder that is seated in an enlarger, between a light source and a focusing lens. By changing the distance of this apparatus to an easel that holds a sheet of printing paper, the projected image is enlarged to the size desired. 

All printing is carried out in the darkroom under special amber- or red-colored “safelight” to which the paper is not sensitive. Once proper exposures for the enlarged print have been determined through testing, the print is carefully guided through a series of chemical baths that make the image appear and make it permanent, after which the chemistry must be thoroughly removed in fresh water. Processing takes several to ten or so minutes per print, and archival washing (of final prints, at the end)  an hour or so, this is not what takes the most time in printing—it’s the process of artistic judgement. Let me briefly elaborate.

Nothing is automatic in printing. The photographer may decide to crop the image, before or after making the first print. Determining the principal overall exposure for a first print can be time consuming: the degree of lightness or darkness (more exposure equals darker print tones), as well as the separately controlled contrast, involves an exacting judgement process that usually  requires a number of attempts, each requiring an exposed, processed, and compared test. 

The reason I wrote “proper exposures” rather than "exposure,"above, is that a single print nearly always requires multiple exposures to selectively lighten or darken areas of the image. For example, to lighten an area during the primary exposure, the light path in one or more areas of the image can be blocked for some precise percentage of the time in order to lessen the exposure there. After this, other areas may be selectively given additional exposure in order to darken them. This is further complicated by the possibility of changing the contrast as well as the exposure in a local area. All of this is a fluid process of alteration of emphasis and effect in the composition. The time spent evaluating the effect of the changes during the process is far greater than the processing time. Does one part of the portrait subject’s face look better at 15 seconds of exposure, or 6% less, at 14.1 seconds? Maybe only 4% less? Once lightened, does it need a touch more contrast? If one part of the background needs to be darker, how much? And should the contrast be a half-grade less? A full grade? Something in-between?

These decisions indicate the general process. Each print is exposed and processed individually; there are neither “presets” nor automatic printing of multiple copies. 

The traditional photographic artist has additional darkroom tools as well, , each to be considered and evaluated, to realize the print he or she envisions. Whether it takes five hours or two or three such sessions, the final fine print is all that matters.