4 x 5 contact burning and dodging

Hello,

 

I have a few years experience printing from 35mm and MF in my own

lab. As I am also working with LF (4x5) I want to make contacts, not

for proofing, but as the final print. Of course the subject is always

a simple one, so that size will not become a problem.

My question is, how to implement burning and dodging?. As the image

is not being projected from the enlarger, how can I see the limits of

my burning or dodging?

 

Thanks a lot for your replies and best regards,

 

Gonzalo

Gonzalo,

you dodge & burn a contact in exactly the same way you do with a projected image - hold back the light to dodge, add to burn.

No way, Mark. When I use an enlarger (imagine I want to dodge), I actually see the projected image in the card I use for dodging, so, I know where to stop the card movement. With a contact I have plain ligh coming from the enlarger so I can not see the area I want to dodge.

 

Regards, Gonzalo

Watch the shadow (or spot) on the contact frame. The image is very hard to see, but it's there nonetheless. That's the same technique as dodging/burning an enlargement. I never look for the image on the back of the dodging tool.

hi gonzalo -

 

i use my hands to burn and dodge instead of a card or "tools". i don't project light that much bigger than the negative i am printing ( 4x5 - 8x10 ) and my hands are pretty close to the negative so i can see what part of the negative is getting / not getting light. it is kind of hard at first but after a few negatives you get the hang of it ... and it becomes second nature.

 

good luck!

john

Dodging contacts manually is tough unless the negs are fairly thin.

Taping the neg to a clear sheet allows you to create a mask for dodging using dyes or marker pens. Once you get the mask densities as you desire, uniform prints are a breeze.

I always found dodging and burning difficult to do with contact prints. I could do it o.k. when the area was clearly delineated and simple, e.g. burning the sky with a more or less straight horizon line, but I never acauired the skill to do the more intricate things that I could with an enlarger. While it's possible to see what you're doing, it isn't easy and you certainly can't see as well as you can with an enlarger where the tools are in between the light source and the paper. The reflections from the contact printing frame glass were an added problem. Back in the days when contact printing was the norm they made contact printing boxes with banks of lights that could be turned on or off. These still show up used occasionally on e bay.

How about this... either A) print a half-size reduction of the contact or else

B) shrink it on a photocopier to use as a template to cut out a black mask -

either way you cut out a mask for dodging/burning and use that above the

contact - as long as something of the border is intact so you can judge the

approximate position within the frame (or not - if you can memorize the

approx. location in the image frame. The motion I would recommend (for

half size) is to move it continuously up and down between half the height to

the lens and the contact itself - so the 'magnified silhouette' of the mask is

increasing and decreasing - or whatever other motion the image warrants

depending on the desired tonal distribution.

 

Best of luck,

Jonathan

"shrink it on a photocopier to use as a template to cut out a black mask"

 

Very good idea Jonathan. I will try it.

 

Best regards,

 

Gonzalo

Some of the techniques above are very good. What also helps is to have a lot longer time and do this by stopping your lens down. This will do several things... it will make your dodges and burns much more smooth and give you time to do it very nicely. Make a sketch or take a wasted contact sheet of the same contact setup and use that as a guide to see where you need to B & D. Also, flashing helps! Take a "glassine" 4x5 negative envelope... a Savage Glassine works great! After you have done your known (good) base exposure, take about 1/10th of the time and set your timer to that and expose your contact through the sleeve. This effectively will burn your highlights and slightly lower the contrast by 1/2 of a grade.