Paper Developer for Making a Contact Sheet

Series Summary

As digital photography takes over, traditional film processing is gradually being phased out. No longer do people get the thrill of watching a photo develop right before your eyes in a darkroom. They just pull them up on a computer and there they are. But photographs printed the old-fashioned way are somehow still magical. The tones, especially for black and white photos, are much richer than those from digital images. This is the reason why traditional printing continues to have a stronghold in the art world. A job well done in the darkroom can't be beat! In this series of free photography videos from our experienced photo printer, you will learn how to print a contact sheet. Our expert will tell you what photo papers and chemicals you need for this process, the explain each step involved in printing a contact sheet. You will learn how to prepare the negatives and how to run your print through the developer, the stop bath and the fix solutions. He will also explain how to adjust the settings of your enlarger to the best results.

Video Transcript

" Today we are going to start printing in the dark room. One of the first things that you need to know how to do when you begin printing in your dark room is how to make your paper developer. You hear I stress paper because there is a difference between paper developer and film developer and I know the first few times when I was in the dark room I didn't understand that. It wasn't a really good experience doing it that way. This is Kodak dectal paper developer. I kind of like the way Kodak does it because it says right on the packaging "paper". So this way, when you have film developer like I showed you on the last episode it says "film". One important aspect about making this is that you have to understand it is a powder. There are some film developers that are liquid. When you begin making this again, it is a lot like making this, it is a lot like making a cake again. It says right here what the temperature is you need to get. It is very important, it is 90 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It is very important that you get that water up to that temperature before you begin mixing it."