Today's date - April 6, 2021 - I have made a major change in my printing procedure. It's only fair that I explain what that change is:
1. I now rinse my final test strip in a solution of water and ammonia (62 oz water and 2 oz ammonia) for 2 minutes. Then I rinse it and cut it half.
2. One half of the test strip is then toned in selenium toner for 1 or 2 minutes (whatever your preference is for your particular paper).
3. Then I rinse both halves and dry them in a microwave for 3 minutes (or whatever works for you).
4. Then I evaluate the toned half of the print for the density and contrast (and compare this test with the final 5"x7" I made on RC paper) Assuming all is well, I then...
5. I re-soak both halves in water and use the un-toned half as my guide for the future final prints coming out of the fixer. This un-toned print (placed in water) can be used as a final reference when making future prints - from the same paper type.
This assures that the final prints when dried (then nest day) will not appear too dark or too light from dry down or toning.


Another change I have made is:
After my printing session (and prior to washing or toning) I remove my prints from the holding bath and rinse them in a fresh solution of water for 5 minutes. I then soak them in a Hypo Clearing Bath for 5 minutes while rotating the prints from bottom to top.
i then place them in the selenium toner (I usually place one print at a time 30 seconds apart) and remove them when the time is up, usually 1 or 2 minutes depending on the paper type).
Then I follow with 3 rinses (5 minutes per rinse) and then place the prints in a Hypo Eliminator (as described in the video). Then finally another 3 rinses of water (5 minutes each) before using the squeegy prior to placing them on the drying frame.
I have found that any slight amount of fixer left in the print (or even the backside of a print) will stain when placed in the selenium toner. Therefore I now use the hypo clearing bath prior to toning.



Before I forget here is the link to "Split Filter Printing" that I speak about at the end of this lesson, 2.5 hours later: Actually I make a mistake at this point in the video. A multigrade paper has 2 layers of sensitized emulsions, One is sensitive to yellow and the other is sensitive to green. I mistakenly said, "blue."

   • Split Grade Printing the Ilford Way U...  

This is the last in a series of 14 videos which I started 8 months ago and this latest one addresses making the fine print. It demonstrates how I make archival prints. It is over 2.5 hours long because I cover mixing chemicals, cleaning the glass negative carrier, making test strips, prints, toning, washing, drying, flattening prints, trimming of edges and spotting. Many of these procedures may not be of interest, or necessary for many of the viewers and so I discovered that, on a PC, if you hold down the shift key and press the right arrow key then you can speed up the video by up to 3 times.
Towards the end of the darkroom lesson I bring out a couple of framed photographs which I have had on my wall for over 35 years. This was done to show the stability of the archival process that is shown in this video.
The culmination of all these lessons results in the final fine print. Hopefully every step along the way is a wonderful and exciting journey, even if the print falls short of our expectation. I find darkroom work very rewarding and so I don't mind the long journey; it is the journey that matters in the end anyway. Once the print is done we have to let it go and we move on towards the next project.
I've enjoyed putting these lessons together and I found that having to explain myself has helped formulate the knowledge that I have and to rethink the process that I've followed all these years. In this way I have to thank the few of you who have watched these lessons as it is for you that I have made this effort.
I find it interesting that ultimately what I do, with film masking, is to place the important detail of the image, in the negative, within the density range that the paper responds to, which is what I cover in the very first lesson.