How was contrast increased in film photography and darkroom printing?
Asked 5/1/2013
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In the film era, what were the common ways to increase image contrast? I’ve seen selenium mentioned elsewhere, but I’m specifically asking about practical methods used with film negatives/slides and during darkroom printing.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
13y ago
2 Answers
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Most commonly, you used paper with different contrast grade.
There are fixed grade papers, normally available in grade 0 to grade 5. There are also variable grade papers (aka Multigrade), where you change the contrast with different filters that gave different colors.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_paper#Contrast_control
Originally by user149. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user149
13y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—contrast could be increased at more than one stage.
A very common method was during printing: use higher-contrast photographic paper, or with variable-contrast (multigrade) paper, use contrast filters in the enlarger to produce a harder print.
Contrast could also be increased in film development. Push processing—developing the film longer than normal—raises negative or slide contrast. With roll film this affects the whole roll, while sheet film allows image-by-image control. In Zone System terms, this is related to "N+1" development.
So the main practical answers are:
- choose a higher paper contrast grade,
- use multigrade contrast filters when printing,
- or increase contrast in the negative/slide through push development.
In practice, darkroom paper grade/filter control was one of the most common ways to adjust print contrast.
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