Setting Contrast & Timer to Print a Contact Sheet

Video Transcript

"After you have your enlarger set up to the height so you have coverage, you're going to want to pick out a filter. I like starting with a fairly high contrast filter. Personally I like high contrast print. Everyone has their own personal opinion of what prints should look like. I start with a number three and on this enlarger the number three filter goes up into this chamber right here and I close it. Once I have my filter picked out I'm going to set my timer. And again, there are many different types of timers out there. This is a pretty good timer though and for contact sheets, the way I was taught and the way I teach is that I don't do a test strip. I basically start with an amount of time and I go from there and I see if my print is underexposed or overexposed. So what I start at is I start at about, I don't know usually about twenty seconds, I find to be just about perfect for this enlarger and the type of negatives that I usually get when I photograph. After my negatives are on my paper, I have my filter in, I'm going to expose. On this timer, right here is expose. Once I begin to expose, I'm starting to make a print."