How to Print a Pinhole Photograph

Printing a pinhole negative is fun and easy. Welcome to the world of contact printing.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Print Processing Timers
• Photo Printer
• Heavy Cardboard
• Photographic Print Papers
• Darkroom Equipment

1. Set up your darkroom chemistry as you would for regular black-and-white photographic printing. If you have a pinhole paper negative that's 8 by 10 inches or smaller, you can use a standard contact printer. If you have a larger contact negative, you'll need to use an appropriate-sized piece of plate glass to cover the negative and create pressure for good contact.

2. Remove the negative carrier and adjust the enlarger so that the circle of light falls outside of the contact printer, bathing it with even light.

3. Adjust the enlarger aperture all the way open (f:4 on most lenses).

4. Turn off the enlarger light.

5. Place a sheet of printing paper (emulsion side up) in the contact printer.

6. Place the pinhole negative facedown, and close the glass hinge so that the two pieces of paper are clamped together and good contact is made.

7. Set the enlarger's timer to 1-second intervals.

8. Place a No. 2 filter in the filter holder if you're using polycontrast paper. If you're using graded contrast paper, start off with a No. 2 grade, but have other grades on hand to maximize the potential of the print.

9. Test for the optimum exposure by taking a heavy piece of cardboard in one hand and masking off all but 1 inch of the contact printer so that a strip of the paper and negative will receive light.

10. Press the expose button on the timer unit, making a 1-second exposure.

11. Repeat the above in successive exposures, exposing a narrow strip of paper each time until all the paper has received at least 1 second of light.

12. Process the print in the developer and check to see if you've arrived at the right exposure. You're looking for a good black and a white highlight somewhere in the print, with a wide range of gray tonalities.

13. Retest if the longest of the exposed areas on your test print still doesn't have the above criteria. Start with the longest time - and again work with 1-second exposures - until the entire page has received light (see Tips).

14. Make a working print once you've determined the right time. Set up the contact printer with a fresh piece of photographic paper, and expose the entire surface evenly according to the time arrived at in the testing process.

15. Evaluate the print on its tonal merits. If the print seems too contrasty, change your filter from the No. 2 to a No. 1. If the print is too gray, up the contrast by using a 2.5 or 3 filter.

16. Retest the time either by decreasing the amount (if you've dropped your filter number) or increasing it (if the filter number goes up).

17. Make another working print based on this test, and evaluate it.

18. Make your final print after you've found the correct time and filter to use with the negative.

Tips & Warnings

• Let's say your first test was from 1 second to 8 seconds and the 8-second exposure strip is still too light. Retest with a fresh piece of paper exactly as before, using 1-second intervals, except that when you've exposed the entire piece of paper in succession, hit the expose button another eight times. This will add an additional 8 seconds to all the test areas, creating a test sheet that starts with a 9-second exposure.
• It's possible that the optimum exposure will fall between two times on your test sheet. Let's say that 13 seconds looks too light, but 14 seconds seems too dark. "Stop down" the aperture one notch; if you were testing at f:4, close the aperture down to f:5.6 and thereby halve the amount of light the paper will receive. Do another test sheet, but double the expected time and straddle the range arrived at in the previous test. So now the equivalent of 13 seconds will be 26 seconds, and your test should run from 25 to 29 seconds just to be sure.
• Expect to use the same dodging and burning techniques you'd employ when making a regular black-and-white print to create the final print.
• Experiment by retouching the paper negative. You can use a pencil to draw in elements or retouch light areas or highlights.
• Consider the "edge" of the image - and whether or not you want your image on a black or white background. For a white image border, you'll need to mask the negative's borders so light doesn't go through or use the negative carrier to define the image border.