Cara Burns Photography: Colour Process

Hints for the darkroom

Tip number one ... Turn around and go back to black and white, (no don't really, that is easier to print but the final outcome of colour prints is a very fulfilling feeling).

Tip number two ... Go in first with the lights on and get the layout of the room mapped out in your head, know where your machine is and how to get to both the printer and the exit easily (I counted out steps between the door and the back wall - 7 of my steps - and then I know where I am in relation to the room).

Tip number three ... Don't go in by yourself for the first few times, it can take a while to get used too and sharing a machine is an easy way to introduce yourself to the process.

Tip number four ... Talk to the other people in there so that you don't crash into them (yes that will happen).

Tip number five ... Always put all your paper away while not using it and when you leave the room, I do even when I'm in the room just incase (I'm not saying anybody would expose paper boxes on purpose - not at £45 a box I hope - but accidents can happen and it's always better to be safer rather than sorry).

Tip number six ... Test strips are easy to line up where you want them if you hold the strip underneath the shelf so it is out of the light and then run the timer; while it is running place your finger and thumb where the face is (or where you are testing for) then place the test strip against your hand when the light clicks off.

(This is a list of things all from me using the darkroom, there are probably some things I am missing in this list)

How To Use Filters

Once the test strip has been printed on 0 Cyan, 50 Magenta and 50 Yellow deciding an exposure is not the only step before printing a full print, any colour casts will need to be removed, finding these are used by looking at the test strip underneath a white light (as the photographs below are taken) and deciding by eye if he has a colour cast or if he just looks too warm/cool, once a colour has been found if it easy to get rid of it, on the door to the darkroom there is a colour chart which gives a handy hint as to what to change to remove the cast.

With the filter cards, hold up the filters infront of your eye so it covers the whole view of the test strip, then slide it along to see if the print looks a better or worse colour. This is quite difficult to use as first and I scrolled though most of the cards before finding ones that made it better but as I became more practised I would almost always know which cards would make it better, but not every time as my friend sometimes turned and told me to get my eyes checked.

Filters:

I took these images with the darkest filter changer so that the colour casts are more obvious but not every time the darkest change is needed, sometimes only minor changes need to be made and it can take a while to get a colour cast that you are happy with.

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