International photographer (Jan-Dec 1934)

Ten The INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER Miniature Camera Photography July, 1934 Tricks in Enlarging JROJECTION printing, or enlarging, to which H -Jsk we resort: m miniature photography, allows the photographer to easily manipulate his prints. This is made possible largely by the working distance present between the negative and the paper in the easel. In contact printing, our negative and paper are placed into the printer in contact. Before going further, I wish to review some points which have been mentioned in a former article, but whose importance demands that they be impressed upon the photographer by the time tested method — repetition. The first is cleanliness. It is very disturbing to examine an evening's batch of prints and find that they are covered with numerous markings due to smudges, dust particles, and small hairs on the negative. Of course, many such disfigurations can be eliminated by spotting the print, but why not avoid them when that is possible ; and then again, it is not so simple to spot one of those "rugged road" markings produced by a hair of relatively long size on the negative carrier, or on the film. The negative carrier should be wiped with a lens tissue or a soft chamois before every new roll of film is inserted into it. I have found a soft camel's hair brush to be quite handy. Every time I move the roll of film so as to place a new negative in the printing position, I remove the carrier from the enlarger and examine the film for dust particles. A few wipes with the camel's hair brush easily removes them. Before a roll of film, a short film strip, or even a single negative, is inserted into the enlarger, it would be well to treat it according to the following "anti-dust and smudge procedure:" By Augustus Wolfman This fact speaks for itself. We should not, however, condemn hard papers. There are occasions when a weak negative with flat tones can be made to yield a presentable print with the aid of a hard printing paper. The appearance of graininess in such a print will, of course, be dependent upon the degree of enlargement and the type of fine-grain processing to which the film has been subjected. Wherever possible, the use of soft and medium papers, in conjunction with contrasty paper developers, will favor the production of grainless prints. Now to return to some special methods to employ in enlarging. Frequently, we encounter a negative in which certain portions are quite heavy and dense, whereas others are lighter. Even though a paper of a comparatively long tone range is chosen, the light and dense portions cannot both be reproduced with success: one must be sacrificed for the other. If the print is exposed for the light portion, the dense part will not show up on development. Conversely, if the exposure and development is such as to bring out the dense part, the objects in the light portion of the negative will be "burned up." This is usually present in negatives which include a foreground and a large expanse of sky. When the exposure is calculated for the foreground, the sky will be greatly overexposed. This is to be expected because of the vast amount of light present in the sky. By referring to the Wellcome exposure calculator, we find that when an exposure of 1 /30 of a second is recommended for a normal foreground, an exposure of about 1 /500 sec. would be ample for the sky at the same lens aperture. It is obvious that when exposure is made for the foreground, the sky will be grossly overexposed. To obtain a successful print of both sky and foreground from such a negative, it is also obvious that both of these portions of the negative must receive different exposures during printing. The negative is placed in the enlarger and focused upon the easel. It is best now to make test exposures upon small pieces of paper of both the sky and foreground portions of the negative to determine the correct exposure for both, so that they will be rendered properly in the same developing time. Let us assume that five seconds exposure is necessary for the foreground portion of the negative and 20 seconds for the sky in order to reproduce both properly in two minutes developing time. The paper is placed in the easel, an orange printing filter slipped in front of the lens and the light turned on. A piece of cardboard is now held between the lens and paper in such a manner that it just blocks out the foreground portion. The filter is then removed and the exposure is made while the cardboard blocks the foreground for 15 seconds, after which the cardboard is removed and the entire negative allowed another 5 seconds of printing time. Tn this manner the sky will receive 20 seconds of exposure whereas the foreground will have been exposed Please mention The International Photographer when corresponding with advertisers. 1. Wipe both sides with a soft, clean chamois to remove small hairs and dust particles. 2. Clean the film with carbon tetrachloride or a similar cleanser to eliminate grease smudges. It is best to keep a chamois skin steadily soaking in a jar of cleaning fluid for this purpose. 3. Wipe the film again with a clean chamois to give a final polish and to insure removal of loose foreign particles. When you have submitted your negatives to the above treatment you are assured of the removal of most avoidable print-marring influences. Even after this procedure, it would not be amiss to wipe the portion of the roll of film to be placed in the carrier each time the roll is shifted to place a new negative in the printing position. A second precaution which I wish to impress upon the miniature camera photographer is to avoid hard papers, especially glossy hard papers, whenever possible. As I have mentioned in a previous article, such papers have a tendency of showing up the grain in the negative. Recently, I was making a number of prints from a negative one of which was on a glossy hard paper representing a nine times enlargement, and another on a soft matte paper (developed in a contrast developer) which was a fourteen times enlargement. The nine times enlargement upon the glossy, hard paper was visibly grainy, whereas the fourteen times enlargement upon the soft paper did not reveal graininess. Of course the matte surface of the paper helped to conceal the grain.