Power of Process Separation System…a progressive negative design

 The analog darkroom has changed, have you ?? There are new and economical ways to optimize a clear path to World Class Silver Gelatin prints. Manufacturers of light-sensitive materials have been forced by simple business competition to adapt their product line. Advances in emulsion design and flexibility in the form of high-quality Multi-Contrast Silver Gelatin papers are now a very powerful part of the wet darkroom silver printing process. MC papers can be a game-changer for roll film users, what was always reserved for the Large Format photographer who could process single sheets of film to a unique contrast design using Plus and Minus development is now in reach of all film photographers. The split-contrast printing technique only scratches the potential of MC papers. My Separation System goes well beyond the ability to print small areas to specific contrasts within a single sheet of paper.  Clearly, there are several paths to arrive at world-class silver prints, what follows in this text is my particular journey to that end.  Make no mistake whatever path you choose, the foundation of that path is a properly exposed and designed negative to best exploit the final medium you choose.   Throughout this article, I’ll use MC when referring to Multi-Contrast or Variable Contrast Silver Gelatin paper.

   The 2nd component of my Power of Process is Exposure & Negative Design where MC papers can show its potential before we even get in the darkroom! Edward Weston once said, “I don’t care if you make a print on a bath mat, just as long as it is a good print.” In a basic sense that is my philosophy. My area of experience and technical mastery lies in Large Format film and the wet process silver gelatin print. The process has become very second nature to me and as a result, I’ve made intuitive decisions and discoveries leading to this article. I don’t plot graphs or do an inordinate amount of testing. My photographs are my tests; if I don’t like something I make only one change at a time and re-evaluate the final print. In that sense, I very much subscribe to the “eye test.”

   While I didn’t realize it at the time, my longtime friend and mentor Jack Holowitz turned me on early in my career to what I consider to be the finest Silver Gelatin enlarging paper manufactured since the 1950s, Agfa’s Portriga Rapid, a warm-tone chloro-bromide emulsion fiber-base paper. I still have a decent stock of the quality Portriga manufactured pre-1988 but only use it for one particular body of work. The main reason, modern MC papers have made significant gains since they were first introduced long ago. The sheer flexibility and potential to affect unique areas of contrast in virtually any area on the print simply outweighed the look and color of a Portriga Rapid print. It was the separation in the deep shadows and mid-tones where Portriga excelled; I have been chasing that separation since Portriga’s emulsion was changed in 1988 due to environmental concerns. Let’s first examine the traditional Zone System as we move along.

Traditional Zone System analyzed

   Ansel Adams and Fred Archer collaborated around 1940 to devise a means to expose and process Black & White films to arrive at a predictable and repeatable technique to render a given scene in a way the film photographer responded to at a particular moment in time. Their technique evolved from the research by British sensitometrists Hurter and Driffield¹ done around 1890, which is to this day referred to as the H&D curve. Their research explained the three regions of exposure as it relates to density. While all three regions of exposure are important, it is the Straight Line region where tonalities represent the majority of information in a B&W photograph and separate the most providing the greatest visual response. The Toe begins before the straight line and is known as an area of less density where the tonalities don’t separate proportionately when factored against exposure and compared to the Straight Line or mid-tone region previously explained, see illustration. Conversely, at the other end of the straight line resides the region of exposure & density known as the Shoulder, just as with the Toe these density relationships are similarly disproportionate in terms of separation when compared to the Mid Tone region or straight line. Throughout this article, I’ll continually refer to the Separation of tonalities as my goal in negative design.

   The Adams Zone System relied on negative contrast relationships to produce a full range B&W print, almost always printed on what was known as Single Grade Silver Gelatin papers. These “grades” of paper ranged from 0, very soft contrast all the way to grades 4 and even 5 which produced extreme contrast, almost devoid of mid-tone greys. These grades of paper allowed the creative photographer a broad range of aesthetic expression in the final print. To take full advantage of Single Grade papers the negative densities had to be very specific to produce the desired tonal relationships in the final print rendering. Adams was a Master at conveying his emotions in a Black & White photograph. His goal in designing the Zone System was to exercise creative control over the tones rather than be bound to a Literal rendering and for that we each have been gifted a clear path to Creativity!

   For years I used the Zone System of exposure and negative development in my technique and workflow. While certainly subjective, my style evolved long ago responding to rich texture in the shadow region, a heightened sense of mid-tone contrast, and good detail in the highlights. In that context, it is easy to reduce Adam’s Zone System down to the least common denominator, in my opinion.  Zones 3 thru Zone 8 are the beginning and ending parameters of tonalities, which reproduce most easily with detail on “normal grade” Silver Gelatin enlarging papers.

   I realized a design change was necessary to capture the Mid Tone Separation of higher contrast papers over normal graded papers. I eventually learned to be consistent with low-value exposure while reducing highlight density through compressed development so I could intentionally use a higher contrast paper during the printing process. Simply put, I preferred the Mid Tone relationships and vibrancy of the higher contrast papers when compared with normal contrast papers. In the purest sense of the Zone System that is an ambiguous statement, reducing negative contrast with the intention of using a higher contrast paper goes against sensitometry theory.   Years ago many photographers believed that creating a “thick” or more dense negative produced greater separation in print tonalities, that was true with then “thick emulsion” films.  That negative design concept does not translate to today’s “thin emulsion” films very well at all.  As with so many things, theory only makes up part of the equation, the Why. Arguably the most important part of the equation is the execution, that is the How…you’ll learn about my How in the section below on Exposure & Negative Design.

   With the advent of high quality MC Silver Gelatin papers, the potential exists to design negatives in a much different and more economical way than traditional wisdom and practice would suggest.   I refer to the Negative Design and Silver printing technique that I employ as the Separation System.   A broad description of my Negative Design and final Silver Gelatin print is largely a function of the contrast potential inherent in MC papers. My exposure, negative design, and processing will allow the same single negative to produce the Brett Weston look or the more open and detailed shadows of his father and mentor Edward Weston’s final prints.   This flexibility begins with generous shadow exposure and reduced or compressed development of the highlight region of the original scene contrast.  I don’t foresee myself moving away from exact development for specific scenes of contrast with large format film.  However, consider the photographs in Fig. 2 and how the Separation System with MC papers will allow any film photographer the advantage of what used to be only available to single sheet film users. It’s important to note the prints below are identically matched from dramatically and differently designed negatives yet no print manipulation has taken place, merely a different mixture of 0 & 5 filtration.  In a similar sense of specific negative development, MC papers can produce equal prints from a variety of negative designs.  Corresponding negatives are shown in Fig. 3 below.

   Above print, comparisons come from the two negatives shown in a single scan below in Fig. # 3. The negative on the left side is a Normal contrast range negative showing Zone 3 shadow density with a Zone 7 value on the face of the granite arches. The negative shown on the right has a shadow value placement of Zone 6 pushing the granite arch value to Zone 10 requiring an N–3 development to compress the higher exposed highlights. What I call my Contrast Formula, this combination of 0 & 5 filtration enables virtually identical prints from either negative. The top row of prints receives more 0 and less 5 filtration while the bottom prints receive less 0 and more 5 filtration to affect different final prints. To be clear, I print with only a 0 and 5 filters, however, that is NOT split contrast printing, rather it is nothing more than reproducing graded filter paks by combining the extremes of what the emulsion reacts too, Greenlight for soft contrast and Blue light for hard contrast.

Multi-Contrast Papers and Split Contrast printing

   Careful research reveals Variable Contrast silver gelatin papers were actually introduced in the 1940’s.²    I’ll start by prefacing that my belief is people respond first to the Mid Tone Relationships of contrast in a Black and White photograph while the very dark and light values provide a point of reference for those Mid Tone Relationships to captivate and maintain the viewers interest. Let’s examine how multi-contrast papers are formulated. Multi-Contrast papers are designed to respond to Green and Blue light, respectively producing Soft and Hard contrast in the final print. Surprisingly there are three separate and different emulsions that makeup MC papers, each emulsion made from a different mixture of light-sensitive Chloride, Bromide, and Iodide, each responding to Blue and Greenlight in its own unique way. One emulsion layer is heavily biased towards Greenlight, a 2nd layer heavily biased towards Blue light and a 3rd emulsion equally bias towards a normal contrast rendering.³  So, in theory when only Greenlight is used the resulting print is very low in overall contrast, conversely when exposed to only Blue light the final rendering is very high in overall contrast. An equally biased 3rd emulsion layer I believe is designed to allow a smoother transition of tonalities in the Mid Tone region, more on this 3rd layer below. **

   We’ll learn later that my suggested highlight densities are extremely compressed and the main reason why is the Green sensitive emulsion in MC papers has a much broader response to negative densities than the Blue sensitive layer; what that means is the Green exposure will affect not only the highlights but well across all densities of the negative diminishing mid-tone contrast. The Blue sensitive emulsion has a more narrow response to low-value density and will impart much more contrast into the low & mid-tone values and never reach the highlight region until the low and mid-tones are overly contrasty and dark. Negatives with reduced highlight density require a smaller amount of Greenlight to affect highlight detail, which allows more Blue light to be used in the Contrast Formula which ultimately makes it’s way up into the Mid Tone region creating greater Separation.  I think of the Green or soft contrast exposure in the printing process as Contrast Killing Green Light.                                                     My You Tube video as an example:  Contrast Killing Green Light

   Manufacturers of MC papers produce proprietary “filter paks” designed to be used with the manufacturer’s papers after purchasing an expensive set of colored filters to effect varying degrees of contrast, usually in ½ grade increments.   These filter paks were intended to be used below the lens and are not optical grade and can in fact degrade the final image clarity.   The manufacturers have designed their filter paks to be “subtractive” in nature, in other words, they remove a certain part of the light spectrum to bias the light towards either green or blue.   That design concept also allows the manufacturer to set “speed points” so that grades 0 thru 3 provide differing levels of print contrast while maintaining a consistent exposure, grades 4 thru 5 usually require one additional stop of exposure but again provide consistent printing times between grades 4 & 5.   In reality, all that is necessary to affect the extremes of contrast is a single green filter and a single blue filter. I have used ordinary theatre lighting gels made by Roscoe, # 389 Green and # 68 Blue to affect the minimum or maximum contrast even when compared to my proprietary Ilford 500 head.   The downside of the Roscoe gels is they severely degrade the projected image and must be used above the negative stage but below the light source, my Beseler 45M enlarger had to be modified as seen in Fig. # 4 below.

   The upside of using a single Green and single Blue gel is lower cost and an infinite range of contrast is possible. The downside is the need to modify any enlarger that does not have a “filter drawer” above the negative stage.   There is a bit more trial and error in determining what I call a Contrast Formula, i.e. determining the exact amount of Green exposure in concert with the Blue exposure to yield the overall contrast of difficult areas of the print to affect.   With consistent Exposure & Negative design, a formula will become more predictable in the printing process. To be clear there are a number of ways to affect the contrast layers within MC papers from the Filter Paks sold by paper manufacturers, a Color Head to the specific variable contrast light sources such as the Ilford 500 head that I use almost exclusively now. Those light sources and my Split Printing technique is better served left for a future article dealing exclusively with that topic.                                         see my YouTube video about Multi-Contrast Light Sources                           

   I want to eliminate any confusion about the Split Contrast printing technique, I use only 0 & 5 filtration, or Green and Blue in combination when I print, that is not Split Contrast printing, it is merely arriving at a specific contrast formula much the same as using a grade 2.5 or 3.36 filter.  Only when separate and specific areas of the print are dodged or burned within either the green or blue exposure has Split Contrast printing actually occurred.

Negative Design and the Separation System

   Light & Composition, Exposure & Negative Design, Pyro Processing & Extreme Minimal Agitation, Split Contrast Printing & Multi-Contrast Papers and Split Toning & Archival Permanence are the 5 components to my Power or Process methodology of producing  Silver Gelatin prints, each component targeted at creating greater separation within a 2-dimensional photograph.

   It is the very power of the MC paper that makes progressive negative design possible. As single graded papers became more and more difficult to find I naturally switched over to an unknown in the form of MC papers.   What I first noticed with traditional Zone System processed negatives in which full contrast was intentionally built-in, was that matching the print’s deepest shadows and its brightest highlights were fairly equal with older single grade papers and the new MC papers. What stood out most was the mid-tones; the new MC papers fell short of the smooth transition exhibited by graded papers from a generation ago. The MC transition of tonalities was too harsh and not acceptable to me. That began the thought process that there was too much contrast in older designed negatives, the separation of tonalities in those negatives was too great for modern MC papers to reproduce in a pleasing way.   I began to think by exposing much more shadow information into the negative I would always be able to “print it down” with more hard contrast exposure if I felt a need because of the flexibility of MC papers.   Naturally, with increased shadow exposure comes increased highlight exposure and unwanted density.   Compressing development easily cures that problem; in fact, a huge factor in my Separation System is compressed highlight density. To quantify in numbers, a traditional AA Zone System highlight density is suggested to be 1.25 – 1.30 above film base plus fog. See illustrative Zone scales below  That highlight density is aimed at producing a full range of contrast from Zones 3 through Zone 8 to render easily on a Normal grade 2 Silver Gelatin paper commonly used a generation ago.

   ** I have never heard a reason or witnessed a discussion about the function of the 3^rd evenly biased emulsion layer in Multi-Contrast papers.   I believe this layer is to help with a smoother transition of tonalities in the mid-tone region because the Blue and Green biased layers by themselves fall short of producing adequate and pleasing mid-tone transition and relationships.   I offer this reasoning because I have many negatives which were designed years ago using the traditional Adams Zone System with zone 3 shadow information and reduced highlight density yet when using my split printing technique and today’s MC papers that I presently use I am able to get rich shadows and detailed highlights, however, the Mid Tones are noticeably too harsh. I believe that the 3^rd layer’s main function is to provide a smoother transition within the mid-tone region. Therein lies the reason I design my negatives with an abundance of shadow and mid-tone values while not allowing the highlights to climb as high on the straight line of exposure by significantly compressing highlight density.   With that negative design, I am able to use a smaller amount of Green filtration and an unusually high amount of Blue filtration. My negative design provides for shadow values up on the straight line where they naturally separate better but because they have been so compressed during development the imbalance of MC paper’s mid-tone performance is negated yielding prints of smooth yet vibrant mid-tone relationships.   Processing film in a Pyro based chemistry does play into greater tonal separation, however, the philosophy of affecting print contrast with MC papers rather than negative density is unchanged.   In the interest of full disclosure, I have read a paper written by one of the very biggest names presently teaching the large film analog process that my negative design with so much compression will yield “mush” in the mid-tones.  Clearly, that observation is rooted in traditional theory, my prints live in the real world may be described by a host of adjectives, no one would ever confuse my prints with that term.

Ansel Adams Zone System…implemented in the 1940s

System designed to produce negs to fit on graded paper / specific neg. density values via exp. & development

Negative densities were necessary to produce desired Silver Gelatin print values using grade single graded papers

Remaining relevant with Adam’s Zone System is the descriptive relationships that modern panchromatic films are capable of separating and are described in the following text below.

     Zones, 1, 3, 5 & 8 and beyond explained

• Zone 1 determines actual film speed of a particular film and your light meter are the only variables
• Zones 1, 2 and most films 3 are in the region referred to as the Toe / separates disproportionately
• Zone 3 is a reference to the lowest negative density showing detail using Silver Gelatin paper
• Zones 4, 5, up thru Zone 12 is in the region referred to as the Straight line and separate best
• Zone 5 is 18% grey, the tonality that every light meter is designed to reproduce
• Zone 8 is a reference to the highest negative density where Silver Gelatin paper can show detail
• Zones 13,14,15 & possibly 16 are in the shoulder region / separate disproportionately but do separate

• Adam’s Traditional Zone System values are best targeted for Silver Gelatin single graded papers
• Traditionally accepted Zone System densities / Zones 3 & 8 are the most important to Adam’s Zone system
• I purposefully left Zone 10 out of my illustration because I simply don’t believe in highlights without detail
• Traditionally designed negative contrast typically produces harsher Mid Tone relationships with todays MC papers

   Actual negative densities relative to respective Zones are meant to illustrate relationships and may not be 100% accurate

 Power of Process Separation System values…targeted for Silver Gelatin MC papers

     Separation System affects final print contrast and relationships using the flexibility of MC papers

Actual negative densities relative to respective Zones are meant to illustrate relationships and may not be 100% accurate

Power of Process Separation System

• Low values, Zones 2 & 3 can be placed as high as Zones 4 & 5 even Zone 6 with my Process
• Highlight values can be exposed as high as Zone 15 with a target density of 1.00 or < in my Process
• Ample print contrast is possible with highlight densities as low as .85 when adequate shadow exposure is present

     I have over the last few years continued to push traditional thinking beyond what was considered possible and adapted those findings to my separation process. My negative design builds additional tonality in lower zones, 3, 4 & 5, typically moving highlight exposure densities to zones 10, 11 & 12. Compressing highlight density using Pyro processing to a highlight density of no more than 1.00 provides a significantly smoother transition of tonalities, particularly in the mid-tone region when expanded with MC papers using my printing technique.  The biggest push back I get is, “what if I don’t want as much shadow detail or mid tone contrast as you do” ?   Simply use more 0 or green filtration in the contrast formula and mid-tone contrast will diminish, add more 5 or blue filtration and the shadow values merge together for less detail and a more abstract rendering.   Lastly, if you find your prints from MC papers are too harsh, there simply is not sufficient tonality build into the negative for the MC papers of today to produce prints that typically render perfectly on graded papers of days gone by.

   A second and equally important component to my Separation System is the compressed highlight density, compressed being a reference to my targeted highlight density of .95 – 1.00 above film base plus fog as opposed to traditional zone system wisdom of 1.25 – 1.30 above film base plus fog. When that negative design is used in conjunction with additional shadow value exposure it produces a negative that is rich in tonality. I often describe my philosophy as building tonality with exposure and adjusting contrast during the printing process.   One workshop student after seeing my negatives described them as “disturbingly flat” Alan Wagner, MD. VA   Another student offered “if I didn’t see you make that print from that negative I never would have believed it” Claudio Szarfsztejn, South America

   In summation, clearly, all things visual are subjective in nature and will be judged by one’s own personal aesthetic.   My unconventional Exposure & Negative Design is made possible by the advancement of multi-contrast papers and the flexibility that can result from understanding how to best exploit what the papers offer. The general philosophy of building tonality through exposure while creating and controlling contrast during the printing stage are the underlying principles of my exposure and negative design.   To be clear, I am in no manner disparaging Ansel Adams or the Zone System, rather I am offering a negative design to best exploit both the positives and the negatives of the silver gelatin papers that are most available to purchase for the foreseeable future.

   The silver gelatin process is already the highest contrast medium in B&W photography short of any type of lithography process. As I stated earlier, it is the Mid Tone Relationships that most people respond to when viewing a silver print and are the most difficult to exaggerate without compromising the deep shadow values and delicate highlight values.   I choose not to use any type of contrast masking or computer-aided technique in my final prints. I believe my Organic Process yields a smoother yet more vibrant transition of tonalities throughout the entire grey tone palate of the silver print by any analog means used in the darkroom workflow as of this date.

¹ Paraphrased from the Royal British Photography Journal 1920
² The Atlas of Analytical Signatures of Photographic Processes, The Getty Conservation Institute 2013
³ Ilford Harman Technology Ltd. Publication Contrast Control April 2010

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