flashing ?

[pentaxuser]

I've been meaning to try flashing for a while (since I got the second enlarger), but I guess this thread was in my head tonight, cause I finally got round to tryingit. I had a portrait shot against a great sky, but the skin tones were buried way too dark.

Rather than aiming for good blacks and whites, I worked the print to get the blacks and mid-tones where I wanted, ignoring the highlights which rapadly became burnt out, as I brought the mid tones up.

I then put a bit of milk carton in the negative carrier of the spare enlarger, racked it up to full hight, and ran a test strip which gave me the timeI coudl flash without effecting the paper visibly.

I then flashed the paper, and repeated the previous exposure - absolutly on cue, all the highlight detail came back!

I guess I could have tried to burn in the sky, but even for a first attempt at the technique, this was probably faster, and certainly easier (and more repeatable). It's pretty much foolproof, as once you've got the correct flash time for the paper it's virtually impossible to get a blown highlight.

Definatly be using this trick again.

Ian

I was very interested in your success story as white skies are often my problem if I want to get forground detail correct. I find burningi skies or dodging foreground to be quite difficult to do well and undetected. However when I first saw your reference to a milk carton I was puzzled to what use a bit of a milk carton could be. I immediately thought of a waxed or foiled lined paper carton but I take it that this is a reference to the translucent milk containers and you cut one to fit the negative carrier. This then produces a diffused light for obtaining the testing for the threshold time beyond which fogging occurs.

Have I got this right? I know milk is now in milky plastic cartons but it's funny I can't get paper out of my head when I hear the word cartons. Must be my age.

Pentaxuser

[hortense]

I use a plastic foam cup. Just put it under/over the enlarger lens.

[gainer]

I use occasionally a separate light source for flashing. This source is adjustable in direction and magnitude and when I throw the switch it comes on at the same time as the enlarger's lamp. I use an easel exposure meter (the OM-10 will do) to set the shadows with the flasher off, then turn the flasher on and set the highlights. You will see that the light in the shadow changes hardly at all when the flasher comes on. To adjust the flashing light, you may make a simple slide to act like a diaphram, or you can get fancy and use an iris.

[lee]

I use a separate light also one from RH Designs. I use it after the exposure is made in highlites that need to be flattened. I usually try to burn in the afflected areas with a hard filter first then flash.

lee\c