CONTACT PRINTING ON BROMIDE PAPER
Nothing more than will be found in an ordinary dark-room will be found
necessary in bromide printing by contact, unless it be some arrangement
for determining readily the distance of the negative from the source of
light. For this purpose and with an oil-lamp, use a board a foot wide and
about three feet long placed on the developing bench against the base of
the dark-room lamp. It should be marked with black lines six inches apart.
See Fig. 2.
[Illustration: Fig. 2]
Greater uniformity in lighting will be gained if a piece of white
cardboard be placed immediately behind the flame. Some lamps have
reflectors, in which case the card is unnecessary, provided that they
reflect the light uniformly; otherwise such reflectors are worse than
useless.
Having arranged the needful apparatus to our satisfaction, the last
preparatory step before manipulation is the making up of a developer.
Almost any of the modern developers (pyro excepted) will give good results
with bromide paper. In every package of paper will be found the developers
advised by the manufacturer of the paper used. Invariably there is among
these a formula for ferrous oxalate developer. This is probably the best
of all developers for pure black tones, but I cannot advise the novice to
take it up in the early stages of his work with bromide paper.
When this developer is used an acid clearing bath is necessary, and this
invites complications which may be disastrous to the prints. When
experience has been gained, and a large number of prints are to be made at
one time, it will be found advantageous as working longer with greater
efficiency and more uniformity than some of the other developers. It is
troublesome to prepare and does not keep well, apart from which there is
the disadvantage that it does not permit of control in development in as
large a measure as other developers.
A reliable metol and hydroquinone formula is as follows: Thoroughly
dissolve metol, 1/4 ounce; hydroquinone, 1/4 ounce; in water, 80 ounces;
add sulphite of soda (cryst.), 4 ounces; and carbonate of soda (cryst.),
2-1/2 ounces. Bottled in 4-ounce vials and well corked, this developer
retains its working power indefinitely. For normal exposures I take 2
ounces of the above and add to it 2 ounces of water. This will suffice for
the development of three 8 × 10 sheets of paper, or their equivalent in
smaller sheets. It is not wise to attempt to make it do more, as greenish
tones will result. For the same reason, contrary to common opinion, I do
not advise the addition of potassium bromide to the developer. It does not
improve the developer, and may do harm.
An excellent developer which must be used freshly mixed, and may be made
up in a moment, is as follows: Take 1-1/2 ounces of a 25 per cent solution
of sodium sulphite; dry amidol, 30 grains; 5 to 10 drops of a 10 per cent
solution of potassium bromide, and dilute with 4-1/2 ounces of water. A
supply of new developer should be added as this is seen to become
exhausted.
Other developing formulae could be given, but these two will be found to
fill all requirements if properly compounded and intelligently used.
The greatest difficulty in developing bromide paper is to get rich black
tones when desired, but this can be completely overcome by using entirely
fresh developer from time to time, and never over-working the developer,
whatever it may be. As compared with the paper, developer is cheap, and it
is poor economy to save on the latter.
Except in rare instances the developer is better without any modifications
whatever. In case of over-exposure, either general or partial, the
developer after having been diluted as stated should be again diluted with
its bulk of water. This gives blacker tones and more depth and life to the
shadows. When through inadvertence we under-expose a print it may
frequently be saved after partial development in the weak solution by
flooding with a strong undiluted developer.
The temperature of the developer is of the greatest importance. In summer
the aim should be to keep it approximately at 65 degrees Fahr., in winter,
70 degrees, but it should never be allowed to go over the latter. This can
readily be accomplished by placing the graduate in a receptacle containing
ice-water in summer or hot water in winter.
The paper is first opened at a safe distance from the dark-room light, and
it is well at first to cut up one sheet into several slips to use as
test-strips. If any difficulty is found in determining which is the
sensitive side, it will be well to throw a piece of the paper on a plane
surface when it will be seen that it has a slight tendency to curl. The
concave is the sensitive side. Taking a standard negative we first take
one of the test-slips and place it upon the negative so that it covers a
portion containing both high lights and shadows. With an oil-lamp having a
1-inch burner, expose the test-strip behind the negative in the printing
frame at one foot for ten seconds. Close the lamp and flood the exposed
strip with the developer. The image should appear in a few seconds, and if
properly exposed development will be completed in from one to two minutes,
usually one. Rinse for a moment, and place the strip in a fixing bath made
up by dissolving 3 ounces of hypo in 16 ounces of water. After a few
moments examine the strip in full light, and see whether the contrasts are
right. If so, expose a full sheet of paper, this time rinsing the exposed
sheet before development to avoid the formation of air-bubbles. If the
contrasts are too great try a strip at six inches from the light and two
and a half seconds exposure. If still too great, use a stronger light or
try a longer exposure and use a very dilute developer. If still too great
the negative is hopeless and should be reduced unless dodging will help
it, as set out further on.
It will be noticed that this method calls for a one-minute development.
This is desirable for several reasons: first, because it gives a unit and
assists us in determining the correct exposure of other negatives, and
second, because it is a comparatively short development, and yet gives
sufficient time after the image has acquired the proper depth to pour off
the developer and flush with water, thus stopping development. It also
leaves sufficient margin in the event of over- or under-exposure. With one
minute as the unit, over-exposure will result in a fully developed image
in, say, thirty seconds. This print we could save; but if our unit were
thirty seconds it would be extremely difficult to save a print which had
completed development in fifteen seconds. The chances are that the
development would go on to a ruinous extent before we could pour off the
developer and flood the print, or that it would go on even after the water
was poured on it. Moreover, in case of under-exposure, two minutes would
not be so very tiresome, but four minutes would, besides which we would
risk straining the print by such prolonged development. While I am not
prepared to assert it as a rule, yet it has been my experience that the
time of development varies almost inversely with the length of exposure;
so that if the test-strip concludes development in half a minute with ten
seconds exposure, I give the next five seconds exposure in the expectation
that it will take a minute to develop. This assists greatly in lessening
the number of test-strips required to ascertain the correct exposure of a
given negative.
Should we wish to see a proof before the negative is dry, it is taken from
the fixing bath and well rinsed, though not necessarily thoroughly washed.
It is then placed face up in a tray of water, on which we place face down
a sheet of bromide paper. The two are removed together and squeezed
lightly into contact to remove air bubbles. The back of the negative is
then wiped to remove superfluous water, and an exposure of several times
the normal given, preferably the normal exposure at half the standard
distance from the light. The paper is then removed and developed as usual.
In this way it is possible to show a print in fifteen or twenty minutes
after the exposure of the plate was made.
The purpose of the rinsing before development is to avoid the possibility
of air-bells. The paper should be rinsed in cold water, as warmish water
will cause air-bells instead of preventing them. This rinsing can be
dispensed with if thought desirable. The rinsing after development is for
the purpose of stopping development immediately, and also in order that
the prints may not go into the fixing bath full of developer, as staining
would be likely to result in such case. With the iron oxalate developer an
acid rinsing bath is necessary, but it is not necessary with any of the
other developers.
The fixing is important, as upon this depends in a large measure the
permanence of the prints. The bath should be freshly made up, 3 ounces of
hyposulphite of soda to 16 ounces of water. Prints are placed in this bath
face down, and one under, instead of on top of another. The tray should be
occasionally rocked. With a fresh bath prints will fix in ten minutes, but
where many prints are made at one time it will be well to use a second
fixing bath. The emulsion of an unfixed print will appear a yellowish
tinge in the unfixed portions when examined by transmitted light; but this
is not an easy or certain test. It is better to make absolutely certain of
thorough fixing by continued immersion, occasional rocking and, where many
prints are made, a second bath. The fixing bath should not be allowed to
get too warm in hot weather. Blistering, staining and frilling will result
in such a case, and I have known a print which was left in a warm fixing
bath for an hour or more to be reduced beyond redemption. With freshly
made hypo baths at a suitable temperature there is absolutely no danger of
the paper frilling or blistering.
The final washing must be thorough, as the hypo is difficult to eliminate
from both the emulsion and the paper. Care must be taken to see that the
prints are well separated while washing. This ensures uniform washing.
It frequently happens that a negative may require more or less dodging in
printing. With bromide paper this is particularly easy. We will take the
simple case of a negative with dense sky which will not print out in the
ordinary way. All that we need in this case is a piece of paper cut
roughly to the sky line and kept moving during part of the exposure over
the part which is to be held back. If necessary, cut down the light in
order to prolong the exposure, or expose at a greater distance from the
light. One or more test-strips will be required for this purpose in order
to ascertain the relative times of exposure. A modification of this method
is when a small portion of the negative only needs extra printing--a face
or hand for instance. Here we take a piece of paper a little larger than
the negative and cut a small hole in it, moving it in front of the light
so as to throw the latter only upon the portions needing the extra
printing. Still another modification is where a portion only needs holding
back. Here we use a small piece of paper or cardboard stuck on a knitting
needle, moving the latter so that it will not intercept the light too long
at one place.
In all these and similar instances which will occur to the reader, the
dodging should be done during the first part of the exposure. The
subsequent exposure seems to obliterate traces of such dodging better than
when it is done at the end of the exposure, just as in cloud-printing
better results are achieved by printing the sky first and the foreground
afterward.
It is quite possible to make bromide negatives in the camera. They have
their advantages in classes of work not requiring the finest definition,
are much lighter, cheaper, more easily stored and less liable to breakage
or other mishaps. They are best made on a thin, smooth paper, a _soft_
paper being better than the _hard_. They are placed in the plate-holder by
means of the ordinary cut film holder. The exposure required is
ascertained by a trial or two, but roughly speaking is about one-twentieth
that of a rapid plate. After development in the usual way--it being
carried only a little further than usual--and after fixing, washing and
drying, the paper negative can be spotted or retouched, after which it is
waxed.