Test strips before printing.

The test strip is the foundation to obtaining a good final print. Unless you have one of RH designs excellent Analsyser Pro enlarging meters. If not the most common way of producing a test strip is with a sheet of card moved at timed intervals across light-sensitive paper. There are several things you need to set before doing the test: the size of the print, the aperture of the enlarging lens and making sure you have sharp focus.

10 x 8 test strip.

Once all this is done how big should the test print be? This is down to personal choice but you should consider whether the use of whole sheet, half, third or strips give the best test results. If using a test strip of about two inches (50 mm) you need to make sure that each segment includes a full range of tones from the lightest to darkest so you can see at which timed interval gives the best high values and shadow areas. It is much easier to achieve this with the larger test strip.

What should the time separation be? A good starting point for prints around the ten by eight size is five seconds. These intervals will give you a rough idea of what the exposure should be. This can be refined with further test strips of two and/or one second if needed.

On what grade of paper should you make the test print? Grade one is standard practice. If the method you use places your negatives at a particular grade In my case it is grade three then you should do your test print at that grade unless you are using the split grade method.

Related posts:

Evaluating your test strips

Enlarging a section of the negative.

Picture from a 120 FP4+ ISO125 6x6 negative
 developed in ID11 and printed on Ilford MG paper
 Processed with Ilford MG Developer.
Landscape format

There are no rules when it comes to enlarging your negatives. Cropping, re-formatting and partial enlargement are all part of the creative process. Changing horizontals to verticals and diagonal is also part of this rich tapestry of creativity. The only time I feel this looks odd is with waterscapes and their horizons.

Portrait format

As one of those people that works with 6x6 negatives, cropping and reframing is all part of making the picture fit the paper. I'm not complaining but the fact is all paper sizes are oblong. I think this has helped me in getting the best from my pictures. I do not waste time in trying to make the whole negative fit the page; this is heresy to some who believe that having carefully framed the view that you should print as you saw it! This is not always possible, especially when you have a certain size of print in mind. Sometimes this careful framing once projected on the enlargers baseboard may look better with horizontal or vertical framing. Do not be afraid to play.

Square Format

Which do you prefer?