But why is it that so many of our enlargements are black in the shadows and chalky in the high lights? Why, simply because our light is too weak for our negative. We forget that if we cannot modify our negative we must modify our light. It is this characteristic of the bromide enlargement which has prevented the process from enjoying the popularity it deserves. And I sometimes wonder whether this chalkiness is due to the use of the north light!
DODGING, VIGNETTING, COMPOSITE PRINTING AND THE USE OF BOLTING SILK
Of all printing processes, bromide enlarging offers the best opportunities for successful dodging and modification. We can cut our light down and take all the time we want, or we can take as little time as we want. A hand, a finger, a slip of paper, or anything within reach, will suffice to shade the light just as we want it. In this connection it is well to always hold the shade nearer the lens than the easel, as greater diffusion results and there is less danger of sharp lines. In shading a foreground to bring up a dense sky, first make a test-strip or two, noting how long the shading is carried on and how long the light is allowed to act on the whole. If the sky is then over- or under-printed we can modify it in the enlargement proper.
The best arrangement for vignetting in enlarging is a piece of cardboard the size of the negative, with an opening cut out at the proper place and about the size of the portion of the negative to be vignetted. This is held near the lens and moved backward and forward between the latter and the screen, the opening showing larger as we near the lens and smaller as we recede from it. Very tasteful vignettes can be made in this way. A favorite method of the writer's is to use a sheet of bromide paper, preferably that with rough surface, and print on it a small vignette of a portion of a negative. These sheets being of a uniform size are then bound in book form, and make very attractive souvenirs. Variety can be added to the collection by printing some of the pictures through a mat fastened on the screen over the paper, when, of course, they are bounded by straight, sharp lines.
Double printing in enlarging is not at all difficult. Assuming that test-strips have been made determining the proper exposure for each negative, I will briefly outline the process. Taking a landscape negative with clear sky in which we wish to print clouds, we first tack on the screen a sheet of paper the size of our bromide, and after properly adjusting and focusing it, trace with a pencil the outline of the skyline. We then remove the foreground negative and, after tracing, cut out a mask conforming to the size and shape of the foreground, cutting away the sky. We now put in the box the sky negative, and readjust our sheet of paper until after proper focusing the desired portion of the sky occupies the portion reserved for it, leaving the thumb-tacks as a guide when we put our bromide on the screen. Now using the sheet of paper as a guide, place on the edges of the bromide paper two little pencil marks to show how far we shall shade the lower portion of the paper. Our mask being the size of the foreground negative, it is now only necessary to hold it at the proper distance from the lens to have its edge conform to the sky-line when enlarged. But this would leave a sharp line if held exactly at that point, so using the pencil marks on the margin as a guide, we slowly raise and lower the mask very slightly and just sufficient to cause an agreeable blending of the sky into nothing. The proper exposure given, we cap the lens, remove the paper and insert the foreground negative. Now we must again adjust our sheet of plain paper until the sky line marked on it coincides with the sky-line on the screen, leaving thumb-tacks as usual. Registry being thus secured, we simply expose the foreground and develop the composite print.