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The magic of seeing a black and white photograph emerge from the paper in the developing tray is something every photographer should experience.
Heres How:
1. You need a darkroom with safelight, enlarger, RC b/w photo paper (8x10" recommended), 3 trays with print developer, stop bath and fixer, print tongs or gloves.
2. Optional items: accurate timer, enlarging easel, focus magnifier. Test the safelighting if you are not sure it is correct(see links.)
3. Dilute developer, stop bath and fixer following the instructions. Make the exact volume of developer - use 500ml in an 8x10" tray. Solutions should be at 68F (20°C.)
4. Either use an enlarging easel set to your paper size or a sheet of white card with you paper size marked clearly as a rectangle on it.
5. Put your negative into the enlarger negative carrier, shiny side up. Turn off the room light, open the enlarger lens to give the brightest image and roughly focus this.
6. Move the enlarger head up to make the picture larger, down to make it smaller; refocus after any move. When the size is correct, focus accurately, use a magnifier if you have one.
7. Stop down to f8 and turn the enlarger off. Take out one sheet of photo paper and cut it into five or six strips, putting one on the easel and the rest back in the packet.
8. Give 8 seconds exposure. Hold a card above a quarter of it, give another 8 seconds, move the card across half, another 8, then threequarters, the last 8.
9. Develop the strip for 1½ minutes in developer, 15 seconds in stop bath and 30 seconds in fix, then rinse it under the tap and examine in good light.
10. You should see 4 areas of differing density on your print, corresponding to 8, 16, 24 and 32 seconds of exposure. If all are too dark, stop down to f16 and expose another strip.
11. If one area is too light and the next area is too dark, you may like to make another test strip with times bewtween these two to find the best time to use.
12. When you have found the correct time, check the focus and lining up of the image, then put a full sheet of paper in place and make the exposure.
13. Develop this print for 1½ minutes in developer, 15 seconds in stop bath and 2 minutes in the fixer.
14. Wash the print in running water for 2-3 minutes then hang to dry on a line (or use a print dryer if you have one.)
Tips:
- Grain magnifiers which allow you to focus on film grain make sure you have things absolutely in focus. For accurate exposure use a timer which switches the enlarger on and off.
- Use a blower brush or air jet cleaner to remove any dust from your negatives as this gets enlarged too!
- The print you have produced is a proof print which is only the first step in producing a fine print. Usually we need to give different areas of the picture different exposures.
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