Refining Printing Exposure
Printing exposure is as much a matter of making lots of test prints (strips) as anything. Since there is no meter, as in exposing film, you have to start somewhere. Following the methods for test printing will get you up to pretty good, pretty consistent prints. Now, once you have a working method for testing and making prints, it's time to start refining your printing.
Upon Closer Examination…
1. Lighten Up The first step is to really start looking at your prints (as if you weren't already…). Closly examine the shadow areas. Can they be printed a bit lighter? It's fairly common for beginners to print too dark. Try this test: take a good print that you have, and print it again, with 10% less time. Printing AS LIGHT AS YOU CAN will give your prints luminosity, a kind of glowing quality. Unlike the snappy, harsh look of a contrasty print, luminous prints seem to generate their own light.
2. Slow Down Try printing at the next smaller aperature. What this will do is double you exposure times, so a 5-second exposure at ƒ/8 will become 10 seconds at ƒ/11. This gives you more discretion is making exposure adjustments. If you change the ƒ/8 example by 1 second (I'm using 1 second here as the smallest time increment a condenser enlarger can repeat with pretty good accuracy), that's 20%, a pretty significant amount. With the ƒ/11 example, 1 second is 10%, much less a quantum leap. So, slowing things down a little can help you test and see more subtle changes.
Burning and Dodging
One of the most common techniques of exposure tweaking is burning and dodging. This is a method of selectively adding or subtracting exposure in areas of the print. The terms burning and dodging are actually synonymous, as burning and area simultaneously dodges another area, but it's really just symantics.
Burning is really pretty simple. Using a mask of some sort (your hand, a board, any variety of tools), part of the print is exposed for longer than the rest. This is done most often in sky areas. Dodging, the opposite, is done most often to bring out shadow detail. The trick is to keep the mask moving- either up and down or side-to-side, to blend the edges of the burn.
The best way to burn is to test the area first. A highlight may require a significant amount of additional exposure, so testing is a very good idea. After determining how much additional exposure is needed, and putting the base exposure on the print, set your timer for longer than the burn. Then cover the lens of the enlarger with the mask, blocking all the light. Start your timer and adjust the mask for the burn, do the burn, and cover the lens. The additional time the enlarger is on will give you the set-up time. With some practice, burning and dodging will become a regular adjustment, and will become more and more accurate.
