One of the great challenges, but also opportunities when using black and white film is to develop and print your own pictures. This allows you to add contrast, to lighten or darken an area, to create different effects and much, much more. I will not mention all the possibilities here, I will merely brush the surface, but hopefully this page will give you some understanding of how it all works.


The film

The film you're using has a photosensitive layer on an acetate base. The photosensitive layer is built up by silvercrystals bound to another atom for example bromide. When taking a picture the silverbromidecrystals are hit by light. This makes the bromide break from the silveratom and a latent image is formed. This latent image is later enhanced during the developing process to create a negative.


Developing

Developing is the process in which the latent image on the film is made visible in the form of a negative image on the film. This negative image is later made into a positive image in the printing process. When developing your film it is important to follow the instructions on your filmpackage since developing times and temperatures vary between different films. Therefore, I will only outline the different steps of the developing process here.

1) Developing: Deposits the exposed silver on the acetate and flushes away the bromide.

2) Wash

3) Fixer: Neutralizes the unexposed silverbromide and flushes it away.

4) Wash

5) Archival: Neutralizes the fixer and cuts down on the washtime.

6) Wash

7) Photoflo: Minimizes the surfacetension of the water and makes it dry evenly on the film.

8) Drying


Printing

The printing-process turns the negative image into a positive print. To accomplish this you direct light through the negative onto photographic paper. This will invert the negative image, making dark areas on the negative light on the print and vice versa. This occurs because the dark areas in the negative block the light, thus exposing the photographic paper to less light, making them whiter. There is basically only one rule that you have to follow when printing, and that is: Emulsion to emulsion. This means that you have to put the emulsion of the film (the dull side) towards the emulsion of the paper (the shiny side). If you don't do that the image will be reversed, which sometimes can be desirable.
The advantage of printing your own photographs is that you have some control over how they turn out. When printing there are a few basics that you have to know about to get good prints.

1) The enlarger
You can adjust the f/stop on the enlarger.
F/stop -  This will change the amount of light that projects onto the paper. A smaller f/stop will expose the print to more light, thus making it darker. You should start out on f/8 and if the time needed to make a good print is to short or to long you then have the option of either increasing or decreasing your f/stop.
On some enlargers you have color controls with which you can change the contrast of the picture.
Magenta - Enhances the contrast of the image (the range of difference in tones between the dark and the light in the photograph).
Yellow - Decreases the contrast of the image.

Two other useful effects that can be created in the enlarger are:
Burning in - Darkening an area of the image by exposing it to more light than the rest. In this way objects that otherwise would be too light can be made darker. You achieve this by shadowing the area that you don't want to expose to more light with your hand. Remember to keep your hand close to the light source and continually moving so as to not get a sharp transition from the burnt in part of the picture.
Dodging - Lightening up an area of the image by exposing it to less light than the rest. In this way dark areas can be lightened without the rest of the picture being overexposed. Use the same technique as in burning in.

The time that you need to project light through the negative to get a good print greatly depends on the quality of the negative. A dark negative requires more time and a light requires less.

2) Developer (1.5 - 2  minutes)
Just as with the negative the print also has to be developed to deposit the exposed silver on the paper.

3) Stop bath (10 - 15 seconds)
Neutralizes the developer.

3) Fixer (5 minutes)
Neutralizes the unexposed silver.

4) Wash (5 minutes)
Washes the fixer of the print.

5) Drying (until dry)


There you have the basics for developing and printing your pictures. Now go and try it!

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