yellow vs white easel

[wiggywag]

How important is it to have a yellow easel compared to a white one, to avoid fog?

Which kind of papers are unsafe on a white easel?

Is it only when the light is very brigt, e.g. close to easel or full opening on the lense?

Thanks!

[Sirius Glass]

No importance at all.

My easels are either yellow or black with a white background.

Steve

[Reinhold]

Back when single weight fiber papers were much more common, the theory was that an orange-yellow easel could act as a pseudo safelight for any light that was able to penetrate the paper and potentially fog the least dense (shadow) region of the print. Actually, the amount of light reflected back thru the paper is so weak that fogging of mid-tones and highlights is unlikely regardless of easel color.

A worst-case scenario might be a print on thin paper (single weight) having a large zone I black area crossed with small sharply defined zone VI+ areas. (Wire fence in sunlight, in front of coal-black shadows). The stronger light bouncing off of zone I could ...possibly... cause some edge flare into small, finely detailed zone VI+ areas.

Reinhold

www.classicBWphoto.com

[Steve Smith]

As the paper which is optically linked to the emulsion is white then the colour of the base can have no effect.


Steve.

[Jim Noel]

My easel is black so I don't even think of a problem.

[Reinhold]

Yep, like Jim all my home made easels are black. For focusing and composing I mark a grid on the back of a scrap print using a fine tip marking pen. Nice white surface for focusing, judging light levels, ...and the grid makes it a whole lot easier to get the image level and square.

If you haven't tried it yet, make a focusing sheet with a grid. Highly recommended.

Reinhold

www.classicBWphoto.com

[wiggywag]

Yep, like Jim all my home made easels are black. For focusing and composing I mark a grid on the back of a scrap print using a fine tip marking pen. Nice white surface for focusing, judging light levels, ...and the grid makes it a whole lot easier to get the image level and square.

If you haven't tried it yet, make a focusing sheet with a grid. Highly recommended.

Reinhold

www.classicBWphoto.com

Sounds interesting. Any suggestions for space between each line in the grid?

[Reinhold]

I just checked:

On an 8x10, I have 1" hi x 1.5" wide; on an 11x14, I have 1.25" hi x 1.75" wide.

It kind of depends on how thick the lines are... Too thick and too close together...it's visually distrcting.
Too thin and too far apart...it's hard to see the pattern and judge things.

Another reason for using a focusing sheet instead of focusing directly on the easel surface: if you use a precision grain magnifier you need a piece of paper of the same thickness as your printing paper under the magnifier. Otherwise your plane of focus will not coincide with the papers surface.

Reinhold

www.classicBWphoto.com

[RalphLambrecht]

...
Another reason for using a focusing sheet instead of focusing directly on the easel surface: if you use a precision grain magnifier you need a piece of paper of the same thickness as your printing paper under the magnifier. Otherwise your plane of focus will not coincide with the papers surface...

No real need. There is plenty of DoF around your paper plane, several mm in fact. The thickness of the paper lifts the grain magnifier to the theoretical correct plane, but not having it creates a focusing mistake to small to make any difference. Having said that, if using black easels (which is a good idea), you need a white focusing sheet anyway.

[BetterSense]

As the paper which is optically linked to the emulsion is white then the colour of the base can have no effect.

I don't understand how you reach this conclusion. A white base would seem to ensure only that the colors reflected by the easel surface, whatever they may be, will reach the emulsion without being preferentially absorbed (due to the white base admitting all colors equally).