Split Grade Printing Examples

While souping some 16x20's in the darkroom this evening, I was reminded of a question friend and fellow film photographer Dan Domme (Flickr) asked a few days ago about split grade printing. He was basically wondering how one can print two different grades onto silver paper, and why one would print like that. So, in lazy, not wanting to write up a long blog post, fashion, here's a quick video detailing what split grade printing is, what negatives you should use it on, and some examples. Enjoy!

If you've never tried split grade printing before, all you need is some: variable contrast papers (graded won't work), a contrasty negative, B&W filter set (00-5 preferred), and a little bit of darkroom time, and you're all set. It's very easy to do, and the results are not too shabby! If used with negatives that don't require too much dodging and burning, it's a very easy way to get consistent, contrasty results with silver gelatin printing. Thanks for looking, and hope you can try out this helpful darkroom hint for yourself.

Comments

[Dan Domme]

To be fair, I had understood the basics of split-grade printing, except why you would want to do it, and what you would look for in judging split-grade prints.

Though it can be a bit hard to judge the aspects of prints in a video, I think that you've made a great overview of the process and what to look for. I'd also like to add that from what I can tell, it doesn't really matter if you choose to print at the high-contrast grade or the low-contrast grade first. Though as with anything, a few people argue for one or the other.