Recognizing the Colour is probably the the most challenging part of color correction in the darkroom - - - trying to figure out what color cast that you are seeing and determining the colors that you want to adjust for.


When doing all of my own traditional wet printing in my darkroom, I depended on a color ring around to figure out where I wanted to go. Even after printing tens of thousands of prints, I found it a challenge to see what needed to be adjusted in the enlarger color wheels, without having the color ring around. Using that method can still be a valuable tool for figuring out where one needs to go with colors in the digital age.


These tend to be the tough ones to differentiate - - - magenta tends to look like blue - - - blue tends to look like purple - - - red gets confused with yellow. And hard ones to judge are the combinations of yellow/green and blue/magenta.


Equal parts of Blue and Green are the same as that amount of Cyan (example 50 parts Blue plus 50 parts Green = 50 parts Cyan) - also equal parts of Magenta and Yellow are the same as that amount of Red (example 50 parts Magenta plus 50 parts Yellow = 50 parts Red).


This is a ring-around that resembles what I used to produce in my wet darkroom to get to the final color print in 3 or 4 tries (if I was lucky). It shows all 9 primary combinations and should give a bit of an idea what colors look like. The central one that I have labeled as "Neutral" - is what I call a properly balanced color for my professional portrait taste (which is a bit warmer than what some may like) - - - and so that is what I have used as the basis to show the variations from.


These are extreme values so as to show the differences. It is much more difficult to differentiate smaller values and varying percentages of mixed color. My choice of subject was for skin tones and because she has a white top (eyes and teeth) where the color tint really shows:




When I printed in the darkroom, I could only guess from experience what the "starting point" was (the center image) - and I would do the ring around from that point with larger amounts of the colors (say 50CC in the enlarger). I would then look at that and find what one was closest to the color I wanted and that reading would be my next "starting piont". If it wasn't too far off, I would use smaller amounts of color (maybe 10CC in the enlarger). By the 3'rd or 4'th print, I would generally be right on where I wanted to be with the color. I used the print with my "Standard", as a reference to getting to the final color. I had a few different "standard"s because I like a different final color balance with different types of images.



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With digital processing, the principles are exactly the same as wet darkroom - the difference is that we can instantly see any changes that we make to color and compare that to another "Standard" image that we may have on our computer as a reference for comparison, to getting to the final color that we prefer.


If photographers use Adobe Photoshop for editing images, the "Variations" tool is provided to automate the process of a "color ring around" to help photographers come to their final color conclusions. This way they will not even have to go through the process of copying and pasting the image 9 times and applying a color balance as I have done. Start by opening an image, and then in the Main Menu of photoshop go to Image > Adjustments > Variations and start playing with the controls until you find the image color that you prefer. Here is a screen shot of the Photoshop CS4 Variations Tool in action with the same image that I used above:


When I have used a ring around digitally, I have generally created my own by placing 9 copies of an image that I have resized to wallet dimensions, pasted on a New 8x10 canvas in Photoshop or any other image editing program I may be using. I then make the colour adjustments to each wallet sized image, in the order that I have shown in the first post. I tend to prefer that order probably because it is what I got used to for so many years in my wet darkroom.


So that I don't have to laboriously recreate a ring around with every image, I have recorded an action that will make the ring around from my image in no time at all by hitting play. The extra work only has to be done once then - and you don't have to worry about PS versions that don't have Variations easily accessable. Most often I find that just having a saved "Reference Image Print" of a ring around starting at a neutral setting of my choice - that I know has printed well or displayed well - - - is handy to pull up and compare with a difficult image that I am working on. It will get me going in the right direction if I am struggling to know where a shift is. If that doesn't get me where I need to go with a specific image, then I may do a ring around on the shot I am working on. A lot of the time, it is just a matter of "recognizing" the shift and what colours will lead to a useful adjustment.

So I just bought this great little box that I'm going to turn into a pinhole camera. I haven't done this before, so to make things a bit easier as I'm learning, I was planning on using Harman Direct Positive Paper, but it's out of stock and there's no info when it will be available again.

Being an impatient girl, I decided that I don't want to wait for the Harman and I'll jump straight into paper negatives and contact printing. I'm a little confused about the papers though. I've never printed my own photos so I'm unversed in the types of paper. Would I use the same kind for both paper negative and positive print? Are there any favorites that you all have for pinhole photos? Anyone willing to give me a quick rundown of the types available and how I can use them?

Thank so much!

I recently acquired a sizeable amount of B&W papers, mostly VC FB, matte, semi-matte, pearl - nice stuff. It's from several different manufacturers, Luminos, Oriental, Kodak, Ilford. No clue how it was stored or how old it is. A lot of it is unopened, so I know it's not light-fogged.

I used some of the Luminos VC pearl yesterday. With Arista liquid developer I got a light grey fog over the entire sheet (borders included). Not real dark, actually a pleasant effect for certain prints. With the Arista warmtone developer it took twice as long as I expected, about four minutes, to completely develop the image, and they looked flat and muddy.

Because I've experienced different results with these two developers, I'm wondering whether the fog is entirely the presumably expired paper, or perhaps partly compatibility with the developer. Might I be able to reduce the fog by using a different developer?

LS, During some searching I came across this forum and saw some beautifull examples of diy equipment. Last week I tried for the first time to use Lego for developing film, for those who are interested I placed a litlle video on youtube from the first attempt:

with kind regards, Jan

Janvandenbroekfotografie

hey guys/gals,
just found this website today and i suspect im going to spend alot of time here as its exactly what ive been looking for.
the reason for this post, and if im in the wrong spot, i apologize as im learnig this site, is I have a boatload of old 35mm film negatives. about 50% are from the 1980s and i have a good idea whats on them. the rest, i discovered when my dad died and i suspect are atleast 40 years old.
i would like to get some input from people here on a good negative scanner. ideally, it would be able to scan negatives at a high enough resolution that i could print an 8x10 if i saw something i really liked and perhaps also be able to scan some older 4x6 prints i also found.
ive seen some items on camera websites and amazon but would appreciate feedback from anyone that including prices etc ..THANKS!!

Need a time for any B&W film or developer.......just select your film or developer from the chart on the left.

B&W Film Developing Times | The Massive Dev Chart

Hello I have developed 120 and 35mm before but not 4x5 what do I need and the times thank you!

Hey all. I was making a pinhole camera project at work and kept getting back uncool results http://oi40.tinypic.com/fz3wbo.jpg (sorry, i was mobile :( ). I only had highschool photo (2yr), and I can't remember how I did my pinhole assignment all those years ago. Needless to say, this current craft is kicking my butt. I'm running out of self-reliance, and if anyone can enlighten me that would be great :)


Here is the camera I've narrowed down to (after trying boxes of all sorts): http://oi41.tinypic.com/wl29w8.jpg. This pinhole was actually made with a paper clip; I got frustrated and the work day was almost ending so I was still testing. I used a proper needle for the first boxes.


The black pictures were exposed for ~2mins. The lighter ones at 5-15secs. The lightest one at the bottom was my test to see if my paper was bad.



I am using a brewed developer of 8oz water, 2 tsp instant coffee crystals, 4 tsp washing soda. I also tried 8000mg of vit c, but then I threw that developer out when I kept getting pitch black returns.


Stop bath of water:vinegar 4:1


Fixer is Kodak, all directions followed.



Anyone? Thanks!

Very interesting darkroom work with multiple enlargers:

Incredible Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop - My Modern Metropolis

Don't miss the video at the end, and there's a link to his web site there too.

I know the whole saying about no stupid questions but this one is probably going to sound like a bit of a stupid question. Should black and white film be stored in the darker film canisters or can the clearer ones that are used for color film be used without causing any damage or potential fogging? New to bulk loading and asked for a bunch of canisters from a one-hour place and the were very few of the opaque canisters and mostly the clear ones. Thanks.

Rollei Superpan 200 shot at 1000. That's what -- 2.25 stops push?
Develop in 1:2 Fomapan Excel with a touch (0.25 ounces) of Arista Premium since it's available.
Because of the 1:2 dilution and the pushing, I'm guessing I'll need to develop about 30 minutes.

If anyone thinks I ought to significantly change development time, speak now or forever hold your peace. ;-)

Cheers,
Phil