From the course: Black-and-White Darkroom: Printing Techniques
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Paper, exposure, and contrast
From the course: Black-and-White Darkroom: Printing Techniques
Paper, exposure, and contrast
- I've always felt that darkroom printing, the creation of a gelatin silver print was a series of choices, and the first and perhaps most powerful choice you're gonna make is your decision about what kind of paper you're going to use to make your prints. When you're printing digitally, all of the work of altering your image, preparing your image is done in the computer, and your paper choice is just about what kind of surface you want it to be. I typically use a matte surface paper for digital because it gives you the greatest tonal range. When printing in a darkroom, matte surface paper tends to appear really dull, and I only use it if I plan on hand-tinting the images later. I will typically print on a luster or a pearl-surface paper in the darkroom. It doesn't do anything to compromise the tonal range the paper's capable of reproducing. Glossy paper is typically just used for images that are gonna be reproduced later because it will sit exactly flat on a scanner. This goes back…
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