The wet print: enlarger, test strip, filters and split grade

Scanning gets a negative onto a screen. Printing gets it onto paper by the same physics that made it: light through the negative onto a silver emulsion, developed, stopped, fixed and washed. A bathroom with the window blacked out is a darkroom. Ilford's beginner's leaflet and their split-grade page carry nearly every number you need, so this guide leans on them.

What you need

An enlarger with a lens for your negative size (50 mm for 35 mm, 80 mm for 6x6), a timer, an easel or a sheet of glass, a safelight, three trays, tongs, a thermometer and a bottle of each chemical. Ilford's leaflet recommends their SL1 or DL10 safelights, which carry an orange filter designed for black and white papers, and names the 902 filter for other lamps ¹. Variable-contrast paper is not as blind to safelight as old graded papers; keep the lamp at the distance the maker says and test your own paper under your real working time before trusting it: a sheet given a slight pre-exposure, half covered, left out for as long as a print takes, shows a line if the safelight is not safe.

The baths and the times

Ilford's process for Multigrade RC paper: Multigrade developer diluted 1+9 for 1 minute at 20 °C (or PQ Universal 1+9 for 2 minutes), Ilfostop 1+19 for 10 seconds at about 20 °C and never warmer than 24 or cooler than 18, Rapid Fixer 1+4 for 30 seconds, then 2 minutes in running water no cooler than 5 °C ¹. Ilford's leaflet is written for RC paper; fibre paper fixes for 1 minute at 1+4 or 2 at 1+9 ³, needs a far longer wash, and takes its development time from its own sheet. Mix only as much developer as half fills the tray and discard it after the session; Ilford says splashes of stop or fixer into the developer lead to inconsistent results at best ¹, and the standard arrangement of trays, developer nearest the enlarger, fixer furthest, exists to keep the tongs from carrying fixer backwards.

The test strip

Cut a sheet into strips. Set the lens a couple of stops down from wide open, put a strip across the important part of the image, and expose it in steps, covering a little more with a card every few seconds, for example 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 seconds. Develop it for the full recommended time, 1 minute in Multigrade developer or 2 in PQ Universal ¹, not until it looks right, because judging development by eye under a safelight makes every print different. Fix, rinse, and look at it under white light. Pick the step where the important highlights have the tone you want, then look at the shadows at that step: grey means the negative wants a higher grade, black long before the highlights arrive means a lower one. Change the filter, run the strip again, and the time and the grade are found together. Then make the print.

Contrast: the filters

Multigrade paper changes contrast with the colour of the light. Ilford's leaflet explains it: white light gives roughly grade 2; yellow light lowers the contrast, magenta raises it, and the filter set covers grades 00 to 5 in half steps, twelve filters ¹. The filters are density-balanced so the exposure stays the same from 00 up to 3½; from filter 4 upward, double it ¹. A flat negative wants a higher grade, a contrasty one a lower, and the test strip at the new grade tells you the time again.

Split grade

The method Ilford's printers teach, with Dave Butcher's prints as the example, replaces one exposure at one grade with two. Their first test is deliberately simple: expose the whole strip twice, 5 seconds at grade 0 and 5 seconds at grade 5, and develop it; Ilford calls that your first split-grade print, as a test strip ². It is a uniform strip, not a ladder: its job is to show whether the highlights and the shadows each want more or less, after which you change the time or the grade of each exposure on its own ². The low-contrast exposure sets the light greys and highlights; the high-contrast exposure sets the shadows ². Ilford's page walks through the cases, including dodging during the grade 5 exposure to open shadows and burning with grade 0 to add tone to highlights ². It works because the paper's emulsion has components with different colour sensitivities, so the two exposures reach the tones differently; they overlap, which is why the adjustment takes a few strips.

Dodging and burning

Dodging holds light back from part of the print during the exposure, with a hand or a wire with a cardboard blob; burning adds light to part of it afterwards, through a hole in a card. Keep the tool moving so no edge shows. Record every move on the back of the work print in pencil: base time, grade, plus 4 seconds on the sky, minus 3 on the face. That card is how you make the second print match the first a year later.

Dry-down and fibre

A fibre print looks lighter wet than dry; printers allow for it by pulling the exposure back a little, and judge prints only when dry. Fibre also soaks up fixer, which is why its wash is long and why a hypo clearing bath earns its place; resin-coated paper fixes in 30 seconds and washes in 2 minutes ^1,3 because the chemistry never reaches the paper base. Start on RC. Fibre is a different surface and a different routine, with longer fixing and washing; try it when you want that surface and are ready for the wash.

Safety

The darkroom is a small room with open trays of chemistry. Ventilate it, wear nitrile gloves and eye protection when mixing and pouring, use tongs in the trays, keep the fixer covered when you are not using it, and keep spent fixer for collection under local rules; it carries silver. Read the stop, fix and wash guide for capacities and disposal; the same bottles serve both.