Black & White Darkroom Techniques
Split Grade Printing
As with any black and white photographic printing, it is essential that you have a good negative, and so as a starting point I suggest an aperture of f8. You will need a grade 0 and a grade 5 filter, and your test strip will need to be quite large.
1) Using a grade 0 filter, expose the test strip in 2-second increments, going horizontally with your test strip mask from top to bottom.
2) Remove the grade 0 filter and replace with a grade 5 filter.
3) Expose the same test strip again in 5-second increments, going vertically with your test strip mask from left to right.
4) Process the test strip and you should end up with a grid representing exposure times.
5) Read across and up to the point of correct exposure, in the example below it would be an 8-second exposure on grade 0 and 25 seconds on grade 5.
The aim of split grade printing is really to maintain a full range of mid-tones whilst allowing a suitable amount of contrast that is otherwise unobtainable when using a single filter. A print made with only a grade 2 filter, in comparison to a split grade print, will have less detail and tonality in the mid-tones and less contrast overall.
© John Williams. March 2009.