High contrast developer, such as Dektol.
Selective dodging or burning of the print to decrease density of highlight areas and/or increase density of shadow areas.
Potassium ferricyanide reducing of prints.
Selenium toning of prints.
How to Decrease Contrast
Filtration. The appropriate filter can bring divergent tones together, thus lowering contrast.
Reduced or compensating negative development.
Low contrast grade of paper.
Low contrast developer, such as Selectol-Soft.
Selective dodging or burning to increase density of highlight areas and/or decrease density of shadow areas.
Flashing.
Masking.
Infinite Contrast Control after Negative Development
Despite all the methods listed above for increasing or decreasing contrast of your negative (either an individual negative from sheet film or a single frame from a roll), the contrast level may still be either too high or too low for you to print successfully with existing papers. There is still a surprisingly simple way to either increase or decrease contrast from that of the original negative.
Suppose the negative is too low in contrast, and printing with even the highest contrast filtration yields a print lacking sufficient contrast. Start with the original negative and make a contact image on the same negative material (or any finer-grained film, e.g., T-Max to T-Max, Tri-X to Tri-X, HP5+ to Delta 100), just as you would make a contact proof print. Make sure that the original negative (placed on top, of course) is placed emulsion to emulsion with the unexposed negative. Then develop the newly exposed negative material with increased contrast. This will yield a higher contrast positive image.
Then make a second generation negative by placing the newly created positive in contact with another unexposed negative. Again increase the contrast when developing the new negative. Now you have a new negative (created via an intermediate positive) in which you increased contrast twice. Of course, the degree of contrast increase at each stage is controllable by you, so you can raise the contrast slightly or greatly via the intermediate positive and the final negative.
Since each of the images is made via a contact process, there is no loss of sharpness. You can repeat this two-step process as many times as you wish, increasing the contrast to any extent you wish, giving you infinite contrast control. Obviously, for contrast decrease, simply lower the contrast when making the intermediate positive and again in making the final negative.
Also, you may simply wish to end this process with the intermediate positive (either an increase in contrast, decrease in contrast, or no change in contrast) and then use the positive as you would use a negative, producing a negative image. This can be quite creative and extremely effective.
Color Printing
Color printing is more varied than black-and-white because prints can be made from either negatives or transparencies. At the same time, it is more restrictive because classical color processes offer no variable contrast options for printing either negatives or transparencies. As noted in Chapter 6, color negatives are lower in contrast than color transparencies, so the prints made from negatives have lower overall contrast and more subdued tonal and color gradations. The difficulty with color negatives is that “reading” a color negative is very difficult and comes only with years of experience. With a transparency, of course, the picture is right before your eyes, and no translation is necessary.
Much of the information presented in the sections on black-and-white printing is directly applicable to printing color negatives. Dodging, burning, masking, and flashing are all usable techniques with color negatives. There is no color equivalent of potassium ferricyanide reducing or toning. However, color printing allows one interesting variation on either burning or flashing: both can be done with a change in color filtration to shift the color balance of the burned area in relation to the unaffected areas. In general, this must be done with subtlety or the effect will be sloppy or heavy-handed. If the subject matter is abstract rather than realistic, more leeway of the color shift is acceptable. With complete abstraction, any color balance may be acceptable.
I have used color transparencies rather than color negatives for years, so my familiarity with color printing is through positive-to-positive materials. I generally used Kodak Ektachrome Tungsten (Ektachrome 64T) film because of its lower contrast than daylight Ektachrome or other outdoor transparency materials. Now I use Fujichrome 64T. All papers possess a shorter contrast scale than the transparency, which means that contrast increases at the printing stage. (Of course, this is true of printing black-and-white negatives where the negative has a far longer scale than the print paper; techniques such as flashing or selective dodging and burning can make the extended negative scale meaningful for the print.)
The same techniques that apply to negative printing can be applied to positive-to-positive color printing, but you must totally reverse your thinking and remember that dodging makes an area darker, burning makes an area lighter, and flashing primarily affects the shadows, with little effect on the highlights. This reversal of thinking may be very disconcerting, especially if you alternate between black-and-white and color printing. Again, each of these techniques can be done via color filters to alter the color balance. As with color negative printing, there is no equivalent to potassium ferricyanide reducing or toning of color positive prints.
Prints from color negatives generally have a softer palette than prints from a transparency. This is largely due to the longer (i.e., softer) contrast scale of the color negative compared to a transparency. Your choice of color negatives or transparencies should be based on the look and feel you want your prints to convey. You can get a punchy print from a negative and a soft print from a transparency; there is a good deal of overlap. It all depends on the subject matter, the materials, the lighting, and the way you choose to print. But if you photograph the same scene under the same conditions with both transparency and negative materials, the negative will yield the softer palette.
As discussed in Chapter 6, most people choose their color film based on color balance, but I recommend choosing your color film based on contrast level and degree of color saturation. This is because you can still control color balance during the shooting (with color CC filters) and again during the printing. I repeat this recommendation here because I feel it is so important. Starting with the film that is most compatible with your printing paper is sensible; it ultimately will yield an image that conveys your thoughts in the best manner possible. Because it is often a challenge to reduce the overall contrast of your negative or transparency to that of the printing paper (especially with transparency material and positive-to-positive papers), it makes little sense to choose a transparency material that looks great but is unable to print well on the paper you use.
There are several positive-to-positive papers available, but the best known is Ilford’s Ilfochrome. Ilfochrome has two distinctly different surfaces; the pearl surface is similar to air-dried black-and-white glossy paper, while the gloss surface is mirror-smooth and polished. (It’s not an RC base, but a polyester base paper.). I find the gloss surface distracting for all but the smallest images; yet it has a metallic quality that I find especially pleasing, and it’s the only paper that is very long lasting. An image on Ilfochrome Gloss can last for at least 50 years—perhaps 75 or more—whereas Ilfochrome Pearl might not last more than 30 years, though its longevity has increased markedly in recent years because of an improved resin-coated surface stock. Ilfochrome Gloss comes closest to achieving the archival permanence of black-and-white (with the exception of several esoteric color processes, such as carbon, Fresson, or carbro prints).