Acceptable Quality of Prints?

[tkamiya]

Same here. I don't have running water either. While convenient to have plumbing in darkroom, as long as you have access to sink nearby, it's not that big of a deal. I print, develop, fix, and put the paper in a tray with water. Then I carry it out to a nearby bathroom for wash and inspection. Works for me.

[MattKing]

Look for the threads here in the Darkroom Equipment forum about the infinite number of ways to put a darkroom together. Here is a link to the thread about "makeshift" darkrooms:

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum43/4...darkrooms.html

The best way to learn about quality prints (including prints from digital sources) is to look at a large number of prints. See if you can find a source of prints that are acknowledged to be of high quality, and go look at them.

Although it is outside the purview of APUG, it might help to realize that prints can be made on analogue photographic paper even if there is a digital step somewhere in the production process.

I'm a member of a photo club that I've come to learn is relatively unique in that there is a strong emphasis on actually making prints. There are only a few there who shoot film regularly, and only a couple of us there who still use a darkroom, but a fair percentage of the members still shoot photos with the intention that they be printed - 11x14 being a popular size. We also have a few good local resources that print (from digital files) on to RA4 photographic paper. For all those reasons, I can say that I can learn from and appreciate the prints shown there, whether or not they originated on film.

[Dan Henderson]

The philosophy of acclaimed (and sadly, deceased) portrait and wedding photographer Monte Zucker has always answered the question of "acceptable" print quality for me:

Good enough is not good enough. Go about photography always trying to be the best you can be. No matter the cost, never settle for less.

I keep that quote attached to my darkroom door so that I see it every time I enter or leave the room.

[Jim Jones]

Several of my darkrooms have not had running water, but had walking water. I walked in with milk jugs full of water and walked out with buckets of waste water. This was no great handicap.

Camera clubs may offer the opportunity to see good (and sometimes not-so-good) prints up close, and talk to the photographer. I belong to one in Kansas City that is exclusively black and white. We do consider digital photography as just one more way to make decent prints, not a tool of the devil. However, a few of us still use film.

Some books, such as those of Lodima Press, have quality reproduction that shows us what fine photographs look like. Many photographic books fail dismally in print quality.