Contrast control: In the film or in the print? Or both?

I solicit your opinions on which methods will yield the best contrast

control.

 

On a scene that has a very low contrast range of three stops from

darkest to lightest zones, let�s say zones IV thru VI. My options

would be to 1. Develop the film at N development and print on a very

high contrast paper (probably a 4). Or 2. Develop at N+1 development

and print on a not quite so high contrast paper (probably a 3). Or

3. Develop the film at N+2 development and print on a grade 2 paper.

The opposite question would also be asked of the over range scene

with minus development to control an overly contrasty scene � i.e.

N-1 for the scene with a 7 stop spread or N-2 for a scene with an

eight stop spread. I�ve heard of some who adhere to the principle of

not going past N+1 or N-1 and make up the rest of the contrast to

their liking in paper grade.

 

So, what�s your preference? Control in the negative. Control in the

paper selection. Or a combination of both?

Hi Steve,

I think the film should be first as it's the thing that has all the info you need to make a good print. Also VC paper is a good way to help make that last little change that you might need.

Hi Steve, Why don't you try all 3 options, make the prints and compare them. That's how you'll learn.

Actually, Steve, I sometimes have a third option for contrast control, which is changing the light.

 

If the scene contrast is very low because the sky is overcast, I wait for the sun (my Key Light). Otherwise no matter what heroic development I perform, all I'm going to get is gray mush. Or perhaps harsh gray mush at N+2.

 

On the other hand, if the contrast is high because I'm trying to photograph a cat under a parked car at high noon, I bring in a reflector, fill flash, or chase the cat out into the open.

 

Sometimes if the contrast is low because it should be low, as with a blonde infant on a pastel blanket, I leave it alone.

 

With a little evaluation of why the scene isn't normal, followed by a little light correction, you'd be amazed how few times I need to monkey with the development.

 

This is a handy skill to have, by the way, when working with color transparencies which don't much care to be diddled with.

John's advice is right on. Don't forget your medium is light. My preference with B&W and color has always been to photograph in light that treats my subject well. That way there are only minor adjustments to be made in contrast later (with B&W) or none at all (with color neg). A few times I've pre-exposed the frame (while shooting) with a neutral card (Flashing) to reduce contrast with color neg, but that just got to be an annoyance so I just made sure to get up earlier in the day, or be more vigilant, for softer light. Watching, waiting, and evaluating your light is the most important control.

 

That way you are really seeing your subject as a whole, not always picking its zones apart.

 

Just one way of working....

 

Cheers,

Sandy

When I'm in the field, film is cheap, or so I tell myself. I'd make 2 negatives, one to develop N, and one to develop N+1 1/2. Then I can proof them both and see which one I want to print. This way, I preserve as much flexibility as I can muster. By the way, I almost always end up printing the N+1 1/2 negative... But I want them both, just in case.

No method of development will always give you a negative that can be printed without future manipulations. But proper development based on your objective for the print will give you at least a nudge in the direction you want to go. In your question the assumption seems to be that you want the highlights to be brighter than the Zone VI on which they would fall with normal development when the shadows are placed on Zone IV. If that's the case then I wouldn't use normal development and rely solely on the ability to alter contrast through paper/filter selection. The better course of action IMHO would be to place the shadows on the zone you want (IV in your example), decide on the zone on which you want the highlights to be placed (presumably Zone VII or VIII in your example), and develop accordingly (i.e. N plus 1 or N plus 2). You might still have to adjust the highlights by paper grade/filter selection, or by dodging, flashing, selenium toning, etc., but it does at least get you going in the direction you want to go (i.e. increased contrast), which is all you can reasonably expect.

I hesitate to chime in, but according to standard use of the Zone System, aren't you supposed to expose for the shadows and then either

expand development to get the high values where you want them, or alternately develop normally and use an appropriate contrast grade in printing? It seems to me the crucial decision is where you place the shadows and where you want the highlights to appear. Typically you might aim for shadows around Zone III, but the highlights could be Zone VI or VII, but it all depends on what you want to do. If you use an N+something development, that will raise the shadow levels a bit, so you might want to compensate by decreasing exposure slightly, but modern films have enough latitude that it isn't absolutely necessary.

 

The same reasoning applies to a contrasty scene. The most important decision is where you place the shadows. Then decide where you want to place the highlights and use appropriate development or an appropriate contrast grade when printing. Less than normal development will tend to depress the shadows slightly, so it is more important to give some extra exposure. Again the latitude of the film should forgive some slighy overexposure in doing that.

Steve,

 

As usual with questions like these, there are easy answers and complicated answers. I'll try to give you a simple version of the complicated answer.

 

First, you have to understand what increasing contrast by each of the two methods you describe does and how they differ. The nutshell version is that using a higher paper grade to expand contrast results in an increase in in local contrast as compared to using increased film development to achieve the same overall contrast when printed on a lower grade paper. Local contrast means the increased separation of slightly differing values in small, neighboring areas, a thing most of us call "texture", "sharp detail" or "snap in the mid-tones". David Kachel had some great articles several years ago about just this subject entitled "The Supremacy of Local Contrast". They were on the web for a while, but I haven't seen them recently.

 

At any rate, being aware of this fact brings one to a new level of visualization: Do you want relatively more or less local contrast when expanding the contrast range of a scene? In the first case, develop less and print on the higher contrast paper; in the latter case, increase development and print on lower contrast paper. The visualization and technique comes with experience. I now routinely mark shots as, N-1/gr. 3, or N+1/gr. 2.

 

Additionally, I (and others) have found that contractions (N- developments) need local contrast expansion almost always. I now tailor my N- negs for printing on gr. 3 or higher paper. This meant revising developing times downward a bit and increasing exposure somewhat for each of my N- scenarios. To fill in the gap, I now have an "N-1/2" (my old N-1 time) for cases when I want N, with local contrast increase (this results in an N-1/2/gr.3 indication in my exposure record).

 

Now for some other considerations: Too much development can increase grain undesirably, and some modern films are difficult to achieve an N+2 expansion with. I find 4x5 Tri-X (and most other films) at N+2 to give more grain than I like. For this reason, I rarely use more than an N+1 expansion. Extra contrast can be gained by many methods. My preferred ones are: Higher contrast grade paper (for an increase in local contrast), selenium intensification (for cases when the local contrast increase is not desirable), tweaking the print developer (addition of carbonate and/or use of more concentrated or higher contrast developer), and, for really big expansions, combinations of the above. Choice of paper brand can affect the maximum expansion as well.

 

As mentioned above, you need to take a couple of shots of the same subject and make some comparisons. In contrast to one of the posters above, I find myself leaning toward a lower contrast neg printed on a higher contrast paper in many (at least 60%) of the cases requiring expansion.

 

Hope this helps some. Good luck. ;^D)

I simply try to make printing as easy as possible, so I try to establish the contrast through lighting, filters and film development. Once in a great while I'll plan on using printing controls.

 

That said, I often find myself printing on grade 1 or grade 4 paper, when my 'target' is 2 or 3. I can predict the Zones but I can't predict how the print feels. If it wants grade 4, I go with it.

 

I agree with the others...you have to try it. Fred Picker used to say "the same is the same and different is not the same". Do it both ways, then label and keep the prints for later reference. I'd be interested to know what you find out.

To me, one of the appeals of working in black and white is that I

am able to expose negatives under a wide range of lighting

conditions, and still produce crisp prints. An "old technology"

emulsion like JandC Classic 200 responds beautifully to the

Zone System, as it was written in stone. If you can get the cat to

hold still, you can make a crisp print of it lounging in the shade of

an auto baking in the sun.

 

I aim to print on Grade 2. This allows a little wiggle room in case

I miss something important, so at an extreme I will end up

printing on nearby Grade 1 or 3.

 

If you want to print on Azo or Bergger Silver Supreme, you really

need to aim to make negs that will print on a specific grade, one

way or another.

For me, trying to make up for lack of contrast in the negative by increasing paper grade just doesn't cut it! It doesn't look right. I would go for the negative. I just did an N+2 in a low contrast situation, and I got one of the best photographs I've ever printed. It came out just beautifully. I was using HP5 with ID11 diluted 1:1.

 

But, as Doremus says, extended development increases grain size. I don't enlarge that much, so the grain doesn't bother me. I would rather print smaller than try to correct for a poor negative using increased paper grades. Any day of the week. If you are using 4x5 film, you have some wiggle room on grain size.

 

If you are concerned about whether N+1 or N+2 is best and you only have one negative, try N+1. If it isn't contrasty enough, then selenium tone the negative. See a recent thread on this topic. You can achieve about another stop of contrast post-development with this approach. I notice that selenium toning also appears to increase grain size. Sometimes, increased grain can enhance a photograph taken with low contrast lighting.

Control in the negative is my preference. Control in the paper is usually a more frustrating route. I try to focus on the midtones (and shadows). I want two things for low contrast scenes: 1. Good midtone gradation (not too flat) and 2. Enough shadow detail to print with. The key for me is to get a negative where the midtones (the majority of most photographs) look realistic. I want the best gadations to occur here. The shadows can be pulled out or darkened in development (water bath, dodging, Selectol-Soft etc.) and the highlights can be burned in or slightly bleached. Of course, one can also split-filter print a low or high-contrast scene but I prefer to get as good a negative as possible. Simply raising the contrast grade of paper raises it for the entire print which I find unsatisfying.

It can be a matter of using both for control. In shooting salt flats nearby I encounter many scenes with from 2/3 stop to 3 stops of contrast... some from what appear to the eye as dark black shadows to blazing white salt in mid day sun. The meter says the shadows aren't nearly as black as the eye tells me and the salt is still nice & bright. Expanded development helps a lot here to keep the image from being so flat as to make for a boring print. With 2/3 stop max from salt on salt(with no shadows at all-just variations in the salt crystallization) having the developing option is the only way to go. When it is the other way, a really great amount of difference from shadows to bright areas and I want detail in all, controlling development helps a lot. Add to it the basic controls of paper grade choice, developer choice & dodging & burning and there are a lot of ways to work with an image to get what was envisioned onto the paper. Even at that sometimes it just doesn't quite pan out.

Having the right light is the best thing, but development controls can often produce interesting results when the right light isn't available.

 

John Sexton often seems to shoot in flat light which can take on interesting qualities after some darkroom manipulation. I suspect he likes that flat quality, precisely so that he has a kind of uniform canvas to work from in the darkroom.

 

I try to get things as close as I can on film using Zone system controls, particularly since I often favor graded papers, which these days tend to come only in two or three grades.

Here is how I think about it:

 

The film is for capturing information from the scene. When printing, you want to do something with that information to make an interesting picture.

 

If you fail to capture some information on the film, you cannot get it back. It is gone.

 

In the print, you manipulate the information you have available on the film. You may even choose to "throw away" some captured information (ie. let a shadow go black, to allow the rest of the print more contrast).

 

If you are able to truly pre-visualise the final print when you are in the field, then you can set your exposure and development to the exact parameters you need. Otherwise, it is a good idea to capture all of the information available to you, and sort it out while printing.

No one has mentioned different films as an option. I often carry my regular FP4 and also some Aerial Panatomic X. If I'm in a "flat" situation the Pan X is great. For normal or high contrast I have a hard time holding it back even at 4 3/4 min.s development but in a flat situation it can really take off and give nice contrast. I always try to get a neg that will print on grade 2. If I overshoot a bit an unsharp mask is usually a good possibility to throttle things back.

Many thanks to all who have made contributions. A plethora of similar points of view.

 

Much appreciated.

 

-Steve