Creating Fine Prints

Creating a fine print is a process with many steps. The first is producing the best possible negative to print the photograph as the photographer pre-visualized it. Once mastered, the Zone System allows photographers to consistently control the tonal range in the negative. It is formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer in 1939/40. The Zone System is a set of techniques that allows photographers the greatest possible control over the characteristics of black-and-white film. The system works best with sheet film which can be exposed and developed one piece at a time. This film becomes the negative used in printing the photograph. A chemical process carried out in the dark which makes the image exposed on the film visible and permanent in negative form. The advanced Photography assignments are a continuation of the basic photography principals covered in beginning Photography assignments. Students will work independently to sharpen their journalistic, artistic, and commercial photography skills.

The attributes will be assessed by:
1. Spending Time
2. Using Rule of Thirds
3. Getting in Focus
4. Catching the Moment that tells the story
5. Dominant Focal Point using Leading Lines and high and low Horizon Lines
6. Frame the subject using horizontal, vertical, square and round (Vignette) formats
7. Proper exposure and development
8. Clean negatives and prints.

Zone System

The zone system was invented by Ansel Adams which is one of the most famous photographers ever. The zone system is very simple and its principles are logical and easy to understand. Its scientific basis had been known long before Ansel Adams and Fred Archer hit upon the method in the 1940s.The zone system is made up of three basic components which were very important to Ansel Adams. They are visualization, exposure control, and contrast control. The difficult terms of zone are Visualization, exposure, and contrast controls are terms that are simple to understand. What can be confusing are the words Ansel Adams used to describe exposure and contrast control: Zone V or Zone III exposure, N-2 or N+1 development. The Brightness levels are a common mistake to think that you only take one exposure each time you press the shutter button. You take an exposure with a specific aperture and at a specific speed. The photographic film reacts to exposure. When film is developed, the blackness increases to a large extent in proportion to the exposure. A strong exposure (a white surface in sunlight) means that development heavily darkens the negative. An Ideal exposure film is going to be exposed in a camera; we have to make sure that the entire object’s individual exposure values fall within the film’s exposure latitude.

Making Black & White Prints

The procedure for making a black-and-white print is relatively straightforward. It combines elements of the camerawork and processing necessary to form an image on film because printmaking actually consists of rephotographing the film image on a different material and processing that material. The enlarger from the lens to the baseboard is an open-sided camera working over a small range of image distances but with a relatively wide range of lens extensions. The Framing and focusing is the first step in making a print is to place the negative (usually in a strip), emulsion downward and with the image upside down, in the film carrier and locate the required frame in the aperture. With the masking frame adjusted to hold the required paper size the enlarger lamp is switched on and the head moved up or down the column to provide the approximate framing required. The enlarger lens is set to its maximum aperture and the focusing control operated to project a sharp image on the masking frame. This operation is critical but need not be accurately carried out immediately. The focusing affects the image size and a further adjustment of the framing may be necessary. Then focusing is carried out with great care. The eye must be trained to recognize the point of sharpest focus quickly and the operator must for that reason, accustom himself to picking out the detail in the image that is easiest to focus.

Materials for Black & White Printing

The printing material is a paper or other base with a light-sensitive coating. Until comparatively recently, the base for black-and-white material was always a particularly pure form of paper coated with barium sulphate and other additives called baryta paper. Its disadvantage is that paper is a highly absorbent material needing a large volume of water to wash it free of the chemical solutions in which it is immersed during processing. The Resin coated versus fibre based papers solution was to coat both sides of the paper with a plastic sheet before laying down the emulsion. The solutions penetrate only the thin emulsion layer and are washed out with comparative ease. The advantage of RC material is too important to be dismissed lightly. The complete absence of an absorbent base is a tremendous step forward, totally eliminating the hazard of incomplete washing because of chemicals trapped in the material fibers. The consequent reduced washing times and rapid drying is at least a useful bonus. There are disadvantages for the small darkroom. The material tends to float on the surface of solutions and needs to be pressed down occasionally. That has to be done with care because the surface is fragile and easily damaged when wet. The special ink is required to mark the back of prints. The material is sensitive to direct heat, which can melt the coating.

Equipment for Black & White Printing

It supplies a negative image from which a subsequent positive print is made. Film processing, as already indicated, is a purely mechanical process demanding no skill, artistry or other abilities or qualification. Printing is a very different matter. Just as anybody can develop a film anybody can make a print but very few can consistently make the best possible print from a given negative. The printing procedure is relatively straightforward and nobody need think that it is beyond them. All that is necessary is to project the negative image on to a base coated with an emulsion similar to that on the film (the printing material) and to develop the resulting latent image. In black and- white printing the image can even be seen building up. The photographic printing is now virtually synonymous with enlarging, owing to the small image size of most popular films. So the basic item of equipment for those who wish to do their own printing has to be an enlarger. The enlarger consists of a baseboard on which is mounted a vertical (or occasionally angled) column, with a sliding mount for the lamp house, film carrier and lens. The light from the lamp is spread evenly over the film by a condenser or pair of condensers.

High Temperature Processing

The high-temperature processing is possible to all materials should preferably be processed at the temperature recommended by the manufacturer. Where ambient temperatures are high, processing should be delayed until the cooler evening or night hours or ice packs or other methods of cooling should be employed. When none of these methods is practicable high temperature processing is the only alternative. The twin dangers of high-temperature processing are chemical fog and damage to the emulsion from excessive swelling. They can be combated to some extent by restricting the alkalinity of the developer and adding sodium sulphate to reduce the swelling tendency. At temperatures up to 35°C, normal developers such as D76 can be adapted to high-temperature processing simply by the addition of a specified quantity of sodium sulphate. The Silver less monochrome images on conventional monochrome film is composed of minute grains of metallic silver suspended in a gelatin compound. It has been a satisfactory method of producing high quality images almost since photography began, but it does have its disadvantages. The function of the metallic grains is to stop light passing through certain image parts. This color film technology has now been extended to monochrome film and the 1980s will see the rapid introduction of totally new types of film such as Il ford’s XP1400 and Agfa’s Agfa pan Vario-XL Professional. Development time is the same, whatever the speed rating. Il ford’s recommended basic speed for XPI 400 is ISO 400/27°, with push processing possible for ISO 800/30° and 1600/33°.

Processing variations

The time and temperature technique of processing is comparatively modern. In the pre-panchromatic film era, when films could be developed in red safe lighting, development by inspection was a common practice. The photographer watched the image build up on the plate or film and learned by experience to judge the exact time to stop development. Often it was the point at which shadow detail could be seen through the back of the material as it lay in the developing dish. This technique offered an in built compensation for exposure error and for the subject contrast. Such techniques are impossible with modern films and in fact are largely unnecessary. The older films were a great deal slower and responded much more readily to exposure and development variations. They had considerably less exposure and development latitude, particularly exposure latitude. To some extent it is still possible to shorten exposure and prolong development to increase contrast or to increase exposure and shorten development time to lower contrast but the variations need to be rather drastic and the results can be unpredictable. Normal exposure can be accompanied by increased or reduced development time to vary image density, and might have a marginal effect on contrast. The technique has no particular validity in extremely low lighting, except as a desperate measure because no support for the camera is available to allow a longer shutter speed to be used. Its true value is in capturing action shots in dull light.