Eric wrote:
> Yes, paper dependant some more than others but I don't know of any that
> don't. Where to judge the print becomes put of the issue? Wait til dry? Or
> chose a bath and time that comes close to dry and how much light present in
> the room.
By carefully adjusting the lighting used to view a wet print, one can very
closely approximate the dried-down look. This has been standard practice
in silver-gelatin darkrooms for decades, where there is often a white
enameled-steel, opal glass, or plexiglass panel with its top end attached
to the wall behind the sink, and its bottom end far enough from the wall to
overhang the sink -- i.e., leaning slightly back from vertical -- and a
suitably-chosen lamp directed onto the surface. One lays a print against
the plexiglass and squeegees it, then turns on the light to evaluate the
print. [Mine is opal glass, and also has illumination behind, so I can use
it as a lightbox for wet negatives and transparencies as well.]
In my experience, the optimum illumination level for the wet print to
approximate the look of the print when dry is generally less than the
ambient light level in which most alt printers work. It is also very
helpful to color-correct the viewing lamp to somewhere in the vicinity of
5000 degrees K. In particular, an incandescent lamp on a dimmer (which
conveniently gives the correct illumination level) is often extremely warm
-- under 2000 K -- and badly in need of correction to give an accurate
impression. Even with full voltage, household incandescent bulbs are only
2700 K or so.
Best regards,
etienne
Received on 07/20/06-10:05:33 PM Z
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