Pre flashing photo paper

I am looking for some information to give to students about pre-flashing photo paper at a low contrast 0 or 00 to help add detail in highlights of a contrasty print. Where could I find an article, etc?

I don't know about sites but I have done this a good deal. With the

negative in the holder, after printing, I would use a Kraft negative

envelope and use about 1/10th of the time of the exposure and put the

negative sleeve under the lens moving it during exposure. A normal 10

sec exposure with a 1 sec flash works well in most cases. You will see

the highlights come right in. These envelopes are for 4x5 and 8x10 film

and are somewhat opaque/frosted white tinged envelopes. Hope this helps

This is how I was taught to do flashing:

 

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Place a small sheet (e.g. 4x5) of your paper on the easel. Cover one

edge of this - say 1/2" - with a sheet of opaque material. Set your

f/stop at f/22 and do a test strip by exposing the sheet in increments

of 1 or 2 seconds for up to 10 seconds. Process the paper and let dry

(or use Ansel Adams' trick of drying in a microwave). The edge you had

covered will not have been exposed and so should stay at the base

white. This is your reference. Look for the exposure that shows the

first hint of gray darker than your reference. This is the threshold

of the paper. Use the next lower exposure (e.g. if your 1st hint of

gray was at 3 seconds, use 2 seconds) and flash the paper. This allows

specular highlights to remain pure white but the rest of the sheet

will show a lower contrast.

Scott, regarding your answer. I don't understand what you mean when you say "with the negative in the holder." If the neg is still in the enlarger, then how is your, for example, 1-second flash, anything other than just adding an extra 10% of exposure to the print. Won't that make every value in the print 10% or so darker?