Introduction

Introduce the techniques of dodging and printing-in (burning in). Remind your class that these are two of the controls that an enlarger makes possible.

Instruction

With the appropriate negatives, demonstrate how to dodge and burn in. Reemphasize the importance of clean negatives and a clean enlarger lens. Let students spend the rest of the period making enlargements, experimenting with the techniques above, and printing on some different papers. Allow time at the end of class to wash and dry the prints.

While this is primarily a laboratory session with a minimum of instruction, be ready to help analyze prints and assist any student who has problems.

Printing-In And Dodging -- In many instances the brightness range of a subject is far beyond the range of tones that can be reproduced in a print. However, you can partially compensate for this in two ways: (1) You can give additional exposure to the highlight areas that would otherwise print too light. This is called printing-in or burning- in. (2) You can hold light back from areas that would otherwise print too dark. This is called dodging.

You can easily make your own printing-in and dodging tools from wire, black tape, and dark paper or cardboard. When you use these tools, always keep them moving so that you won't be able to see a sharp line on the finished print, indicating where you printed-in or dodged.

Printing-In -- There are many situations where printing-in comes in handy. For example, let's assume you've taken a flash picture of a group of people. When you make a straight print from the negative, the people in the foreground will probably be much lighter than those who were farther from the camera. You can darken the people in the foreground by printing-in. After you've given the print its normal exposure, hold a piece of cardboard under the enlarger lens about midway between the lens and the paper. Turn on the enlarger and move the cardboard so that only the area of the image that is too light receives additional exposure. If the area you want to darken is small or near the center of the paper, it's easier to confine the additional exposure to that area if you do the printing-in with a piece of cardboard in which you've cut a hole. Remember to keep the cardboard in continuous motion so that the doctoring won't be apparent on the finished print.

A technically good print of a landscape which reproduces all the tones in the original scene may be weakened pictorially by light-toned areas which compete for attention with the center of interest. These light areas could be bright stones in the foreground, bright reflections, a white house, a light sky, or some other distracting element. You can darken such areas by printing-in.

If the line between the satisfactory area and the area you want to darken is rather intricate, you can make a printing-in tool from a test print of the same size. Just cut the area you want to darken out of the test print. After you've given your final print its normal exposure, print-in the area that is too light by holding the cutout print very close to the paper you are exposing. Move the cutout print only very slightly during the exposure.

Dodging -- In dodging, you hold back light from the projected image during the basic exposure time so that the photographic paper receives less-than-normal exposure in areas that were too dark in your straight print. The tools used in dodging are also very simple to make. You can cut any shape you need from a piece of dark cardboard or paper, and tape it to a piece of wire. Then while you expose the print, hold the cardboard by the wire and move the cardboard over the area of the projected image which is too dark. In dodging, besides keeping the cardboard in motion, make sure you move the wire from side to side too. Otherwise you can get a light line on your print caused by the shadow of the wire.

Assignment

Have students practice in the darkroom in their spare time and possibly expose and process another roll of film for use at the next meeting.