Post Processing photos in the good old days

[Xplosion]

I'm quite young and thus was never involved with photography in the days of the dark room but sometimes, I get good captures which can become great ones by photoshop fiddling but it feels like cheating?! yet annoyingly, the colours I get on the camera sometimes are nowhere as vivid as I would like so was wondering what do you guys think of the topic?

In the old days of the dark rooms, what techiques were available to boost a photograph?

 

[Eau Rouge]

You bought the right film. Film makers (Kodak, Fuji etc) had a large variety of film brands, with different levels of saturation or contrast or grain type. Fuji Velvia, for example, gave very saturated colours, great for landscapes, a bit overblown for other things, and not really suitable at all for portraits.

 

[rh1944]

I'm quite young and thus was never involved with photography in the days of the dark room but sometimes, I get good captures which can become great ones by photoshop fiddling but it feels like cheating?! yet annoyingly, the colours I get on the camera sometimes are nowhere as vivid as I would like so was wondering what do you guys think of the topic?

In the old days of the dark rooms, what techiques were available to boost a photograph?

I have a book about Ansel Adams. It contains three chapters devoted to things he did in the dark room. He was as great a genius in the dark room as he was as taking the images in the first place. He was able to expose, develop and print part and all of a negative in a variety of ways. It ain't cheating to use post prod software. If it was good for Adams then it's good enough for us.

 

[Werecow]

Yeah not many people seem to know that ansel adams spent massive amounts of time post processing his images.

The dodge and burn tools in photoshop are actually named and do the same things as a film processing technique for example, as is unsharp mask sharpening.

 

[Nod]

A lot was (and still is!) in film selection - Velvia for (some might say over)saturated colour for example. With slide film, that is about it, although 2nd generation slides (ie copies) could be made using different films as well as stacking slides to get superimposed images. With colour negative, there's a bit in the film (some are tungsten balanced, some daylight etc) as well as there being different speeds etc. Then, at the print stage, there is a lot that can be done with filtration to get different colour balances, contrast etc (take a negative to 2 different labs for a re-print and see how different they come back!)

As for B&W, there's the dodging and burning, solarization, double exposing the print (2 negs and clever masking) and that's all before we even touch on re-touching and copying the prints (or even larger negs and plates). The Soviet block were particularly adept at removing personae who had become non gratae.

Keep an eye out in 2nd hand bookshops and charity shops for books on darkroom techniques - there are plenty of them about!

 

[Raymond Lin]

You select the film, lets just say B&W for the moment as with colour slides, there is no give, what you take is what you get. You pick a film, Iford Delta, FP5...etc first then you develop it after you took a photo.

There are also technique in developing (push and pull), by purposesly over expose and under develop and vice versa, or develop a B&W film using colour chemicals for funky effects. There is also the mixture of chemicals you can play with, the concentration, then the time you spent developing it in the chemicals.

Then it comes to print, you choose a type of paper, gloss, matte, the tone (serpia, whites), and then you do you cropping in the enlarger. Where you can expose it for different lengths to adjust contrast/brightness. You can also do the dodge and burn with your hands, it is all very analogue, you literally wave your hand or a piece of card over the print under the light.

To remove spots you can do it after the print is out of the machine/chemicals with a paint brush.

The whole process can be done in about 2 hours if you have an print instead of the chemical/trays/hang dry. The bit that takes up most time is the developing and hang dry the negatives bit, you don't want it to dry to fast as it will curd up instead of flat.

 

[Xplosion]

Can someone do me a favour and post some before and after photo's (Digital) of what you think are great pics after processing them? I'd really appreciate it,

thanks

 

[Craikeybaby]

I think theres been a thread about that recently...