Larry Bartlett's book, Bruce Barnbaum's book and Tim Rudman's Master Printing course is all that you need. By far by favorites. I probably ought to sell all the rest!
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Larry Bartlett's book, Bruce Barnbaum's book and Tim Rudman's Master Printing course is all that you need. By far by favorites. I probably ought to sell all the rest!
I've seen most of the books recommended above, and they are all quite good. The Adams and Rudman books may be the most available; the Thornton book has a lot of good, practical tips, but it is quite oriented to Thornton's style of doing things - maybe not yours. That's the problem with advanced printing books. Everyone has his own style of doing things. You need to explore several sources to adapt the information to your own style. Prowling used book stores can be a great source. I found an old book by Lootens last year that was outstanding.
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Originally Posted by nworth
Good advice and excellent reccomendations, thank you all.
Perhaps you should have a look at Gene Nocon's "Photographic Printing". In my opinion a very useful and straightforward introduction to printing.
Out of print, but available second hand from amazon.com.
Trond
I can echo Tim Rudman's book, and I also quite like John Blakemore's Black and White Photography Workshop. Also, read a lot of books on the genre - one learns a great deal by looking at photographs and reading the story behind them. Time Life's The Print is one such example, having the virtue of not being limited to one style or vision. The dedicated teaching books, like Rudman's, are however the best for understanding the basics of printing, the properties of paper etc. Ctein's free download is also quite useful, although perhaps a bit more advanced and technical in nature, even. I also have Way Beyond Monochrome II, and can say it finally helped me to understand how to use contrast for VC papers in a predictable manner to get the result I want. In hindsight it is simple and straightforward, but few if any other resources explain it as elegantly for a relative beginner. It is a good general resource, too. Since you have Adams's The Print, you can start there and then the rest may make more sense. Notably, two things have changed since that book was written: Variable Contrast paper, and newer film emulsions and developers. T-grain films and developers such as Xtol and Caffenol did not exist in his time, and although that is not exactly directly related to printing, the quality of your negative is relevant. A good resource on modern film characteristics and developers will also help with printing. The Darkroom Cookbook and Film Developing Cookbook duo is an extremely valuable resource in that respect, so if you do not own them, if I were you they would be high on my list.
If you can find one, the darkroom printing book by the late Gene Nocon is very,very informative. I managed to get one 2nd hand after it had been out of print for a few years. This is the book that introduced me to 'zone' printing and the technique of using a blue filter over the enlarger grain magnifier to get the picture truly in focus. (Based on the theory that B&W paper is blue sensitive and not affected by other light)
I have and enjoy the Ansel Adams series (the Camera, the Negative and the Print) I also found Bruce Barnbaum's The Art of Photography a great book, many pennies dropped for me when I read through this book.
I have a copy of Gene's book and it made a huge difference to my approach to printing, and I still use his methods today. I also have AA's book collection and have read Tim's book as well, but for me, it was a combination of a Kodak Workshop Series - Advanced B&W Photography and Gene's enlightening book, that had me printing images vastly improved from my initial foray into the world in B&W photography.
After reading many, many others, Vestal's "The Craft of Photography" was the book that finally made it clear to me. Highly recommended.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Swinnard
to be sure... dittoQuote:
Originally Posted by Dave Swinnard