[Leica] Printing Skill

[Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>]

The trick to great printing is getting good negatives. The trick to
getting good negatives (basically) is to: a.) give enough exposure, b.)
don't give too much development, c.) use good camera lenses, and d.)
shoot in good light.

I used to start my photography classes by giving each student a film
strip with a single negative in the middle of it. I'd send them into the
darkroom on the very first day of class and have them make a print from
it. Following basic instructions, most of them could make a good-looking
print within an hour. This pleased them to no end. The purpose was to
show them how easy it is to get a good print from a good negative. Many
students who are learning printing exert a lot of effort and care
experimenting with the printing of truly crappy negatives. I think it's
wasted time. The problem is that while it's easy to get a decent print
from a great negative, and not too difficult to get a great print, it
takes a lot of work to get a decent print from a crappy negative.

I've had a reputation as a great printer since my days in art school.
Actually, I just make good negatives.

Another surprise is that I'm a big fan of ring-around tests. This was
the seat-of-the-pants method you might have learned in photography class
long ago whereby you made a set of negatives from one film and one
developer that gave you nine different negatives on a matrix of
development and exposure as follows:


                Underexposed           normally exposed
overexposed

Under-
developed         Ue/Ud                      Ne/Ud
Oe/Ud


Normally
developed         Ue/Nd                      Ne/Nd
Oe/Nd


Over-
developed         Ue/Od
Ne/Od                        Oe/Od


Like many other photographers of my generation, I then learned to
disparage the ring-around test and went through all the
sensitometrically-based film-test regimens, from Picker to the AA Zone
System to BTZS and several more along the way.

But it's best to remember that Ansel Adams was a very experienced
photographer by the time he formulated the Zone System. The ring-around
imparts something that by-the-numbers and by-the-measurements tests
don't provide: a visual, seat-of-the-pants "feel" for how to manipulate
the film. It allows you to pick your working E.I. and development times
based on your artistic taste.

Where BTZS data really comes in handy is in choosing what I call the
"FDP Perplex," the _F_ilm, film _D_eveloper, and _P_aper combination.
Those three things are what determine print gradation, which is usually
a print's most distinguishing technical characteristic. And there are
simply too many variables to learn by experience, especially since it
takes many different prints made under many different conditions to get
a seat-of-the-pants "feel" for how just one FDP combination is behaving.
Here, sensitometric data helps enormously. With Phil Davis's
Plotter/Matcher program and a database of film-and-film-developer curve
families loaded into the computer, I can learn with a few clicks of the
mouse what would take me six months to learn in the darkroom.

Many, many photographers pick their chosen FDP combinations
adventitiously, based on random advice or unscientific trials, and, to a
greater or lesser degree, the way the MATERIALS want to look and the way
the PHOTOGRAPHER wants his or her prints to look are at odds! Here is
the real tragedy of basic printing technique: that many photographers
are unwittingly devoting effort, craftsmanship, time, and care to
working AGAINST the inherent characteristics of their materials, instead
of simply intelligently choosing materials that naturally give them the
look they want.

Not only that, but misunderstanding the FDP Perplex makes most "tests"
(meaning: trials) of different materials meaningless. For instance,
let's say you want to test a new film developer. Your current FPD
combination is Film "A," Developer "B," and Paper "C." To "test"
Developer "X," most photographers would replace A-B-C with A-X-C,
mistakenly following the dictates of what they think is the "scientific
method" whereby all variables are kept constant but one. They then look
at the A-X-C print, compare it to their A-B-C prints, describe the
differences, and ascribe the differences to the new developer.

This method is totally wrong. Why? Because, using the computer, I can
graph the gradation of A-B-C. Substituting Developer X for Developer B,
I can then choose different variables for A and C that would make for
many different permutations of technical effects in the final print. I
may even be able to choose a film and a paper that would make the new
developer look like it's doing the OPPOSITE of what our hapless "tester"
thinks it's doing!

This is why you often read directly conflicting reports of materials'
characteristics on the internet.

Sadly, the Plotter/Matcher program is available only to Phil's workshop
students, and even then it comes without Phil's huge database of film
and paper data, compiled over many years of arduous testing, which is
really what makes the program valuable. So it's essentially inaccessible
to most photographers.

Some photographers have lit upon the "right" FDP combination (based on
how they prefer their prints to look) by happenstance, or by mimicking
some other photographer whose work they admire. These are the lucky
ones. Many others spend time and effort fighting their materials: trying
to use darkroom manipulation to get their prints to look different than
their materials want to look. They call this "printing skill."

A pity.

- --Mike