Choosing printing methods for B/W

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It was in the 90's when I last made my own prints, was in an University Photo class, and only used Kodak basic paper, so that's all I really know. I have not studied other possibilities of prints, but see a lot of talk of them online.

 

I assume it is difficult to see the results of different techniques online, such as silver enriched paper, platinum, selenium, palladium, etc?

[vic vic]

hi scott....

 

i suggest to use the normal silver-gelatin printing preferably on the fiber-based paper (real paper not the plastic). a good paper to start with would be the agfa mcc111 (see it these days under MACO). this is a glossy paper (but not too glossy at all - it is very gentel) with amazing tonality and richness. this is one of my fave papers.

later u can add more and more papers to play with... they all have their own character. berger papers are amazing, ilford amazing (the mgw24k and mg5k are among my faves).

 

for the bigining especially...

1. use silver-gelatin... do not use now platinum or other cool alt processes. why... cause u have to develop yourself as a printer first. also, the alt processes might not be difficult but they are far less strieghts than silvergelatin. they are usually to playfull. nice of course, especially lith printing and platinum but do it later. also, platinum (and most alt processes) need contact printings... this means, that u either have to make photos with big cameras (my pref is 8x10" which is one of the most perfect sizes in my opinion for platinum) or other wise u have to duplicate and enlarge your negative first and only then u can make contact-print. this option is a bit more complicated and needs knowledge. study it later if u will be enthusiastic about platinum or other alt processes.

2. for roll films, i almost always use multi-grade papers (also called multi-contrast).... why... cause no metter how good u r at exposure and film developing, u simply do not have so much pricize control over all the roll wether it is small format or medium. of course, in very controled situations (call it studio for example) then u can have far more control. besides.... im telling u.... the multi-grade papers are fantastic and nothing inferior at all to most of the single-graded papers. though, some unique papers are only in single-grade. single-grade is cool for big format cameras where u have prcize control over each film/frame u do.

3. i highly recommend u to study and develop your skills with so called SPLIT-PRINTING technique. this is done with multi-grade enlarging heads (light sourse device on the enlarger). basically, what u do is that u make initial exposure of the paper on softest grade. do the test and choose how u want the base to look. especially look for light tonalities. the next step is to expose the paper with your selected soft tone (yellow on the enlarger head) and then change the soft tone to hard tone (magenta) and add blacks to your photograph. this will give u nice basic photograph. from here u can experiment on and on... u can study how to control more prcisly the general contrast, the local contrast, the look and the luminosity etc.....

[DTD]

I did a lot of black and white printing at one time, but never enjoyed it.

I'd agree with Victor and suggest you get going with some of the standard multigrade papers. Fibre based ones are best, but resin coated ones are very convenient.

 

You are quite right to say it's impossible to appreciate different papers on screen.

At one time all the manufacturers did sample books. Don't know where you're based but Kentmere the UK manufacturer made some nice surfaces.