Contrast

Contrast

• in general, a difference between extremes used in many photographic contexts; lighting contrast, negative contrast, printing paper contrast, and in contexts in design, such as contrast in subject matter, mood, textures and so on.

Printing Contrast

• difference between highlights and shadow areas in our print

Color Contrast Filters

• used in B+W printing to change the tonal relationships of objects within the image
• yellow filters are used to reduce contrast (less difference between shadows and highlights)
• magenta filters are used to increase the contrast in the print (creates more difference between shadows and highlights)

How do you determine what level of filtration to use?

• test the negative at zero filtration
• look at the highlights on the test strip
• choose a time where there is reasonable density in the highlights
• print another strip at the time determined (still at zero filtration)
• now look at the shadow area of the print
• if at the desired time in the highlights the shadow area is too light you need to increase contrast
• if at desired time for highlights the shadow area is too dark you need to decrease contrast
• it is important to remember that as you add filtration you will need to re-test for density
• adding filtration will increase printing time, generally

Diffusion Enlarger.............Condenser Enlarger

80 yellow......................filter #0
30 yellow......................filter #1
no filtration..................filter #2
40 magenta.....................filter #3
65 magenta.....................filter #3.5
100 magenta....................filter #4
170 magenta....................filter #5

• the grain that we see in our prints is the grain from the film
• fast ISO produces larger grain structure
• 1600 is larger than 400
• because grain is ultimately controlled by the film, our choice of paper or amount of filtration will NOT affect the size of the grain. Only enlargement will increase size of grain in print
• our perception of grain changes based on smoothness of the edges of grain
• as we increase contrast, the grain structure becomes more apparent even though the size hasn't changed