Am making slow progress on the dump family portrait. I worked about 5 hours this morning, making several test strips of different sections of the image, I then made my first attempt which turned out poorly.
I will have to do extensive burns on this print, as there many white areas that distract and confuse. In version one I did 6 burns (2 with masks) and 4 dodges but it is not nearly enough. I need to burn down the corners especially. One of the problems with this enlarger is that when using the 5x7 negative the corners have of the print have some significant fall off (slight vignetting). I need to burn the corners etc. The area around the mother and child is also much to dark, will need to do some extra dodging there as well.
The contrast also needs to be pulled back from 3.5 to 3 or even 2.5. I thought in the testing that contrast 3.5 looks best but it is too high, need to pull back and get some tonality. I can do local contrast enhancement-improvement with bleach in the secondary printing process.
A difficult but essential exhibition print. I will have some food, a bit of a rest then re attack it in a few hours. It might be worth trying this negative in the 8x10 Durst color head diffusion enlarger.
The contrast also needs to be pulled back from 3.5 to 3 or even 2.5. I thought in the testing that contrast 3.5 looks best but it is too high, need to pull back and get some tonality. I can do local contrast enhancement-improvement with bleach in the secondary printing process.
A difficult but essential exhibition print. I will have some food, a bit of a rest then re attack it in a few hours. It might be worth trying this negative in the 8x10 Durst color head diffusion enlarger.
