Contents

In taking up enlarging a full knowledge of what has been said as to the manipulation of bromide paper will be necessary, as the principles governing exposure apply here as in contact printing, errors being even more serious, owing to the greater waste of material.

For the illuminant used in enlarging, we may employ either daylight or artificial light. The former is cheap, but variable; the first cost of the latter is quite a little sum, but the light is uniform. A daylight enlarging apparatus can be made for a dollar or two, and hence is within the reach of all; and if the process be given up, the loss is not serious.

If the cost is of little or no moment, very serviceable enlarging cameras can be bought for about twenty-five dollars. Such a camera is adapted for reducing as well as enlarging, and so will be found useful for lantern slide making, copying, etc. As a matter of fact, few things are as useful to the amateur as a good enlarging outfit.

We will first consider enlarging by daylight with home-made apparatus. For this purpose a room with at least one window will be needed. It should preferably be convenient to the dark-room. If the window of this room commands a view unobstructed by buildings, trees or the like, so much the better. I personally prefer a south light. With this one can get soft enlargements from the most contrasty negatives, while by shielding the negatives from the direct rays of the sun we can work from negatives which are quite flat and lacking in contrasts.

A template for making the box described below.But whatever the room chosen, all windows but the one at which we are to work must be blocked up. This can be done by heavy dark curtains, or by specially constructed frames covered with light-tight material and made to fit closely in the windows. If there are any transoms these should likewise be covered. White light entering under the doors can be shut out by placing a rug along the bottom of the door. Care must be taken that the window-frames fit closely, as the light from openings at the windows would soon fog a sheet of bromide paper if it fell upon it even for a few moments.

Assuming that the room chosen can be made practically light-tight, we will need some arrangement to hold the negative. The details of a box for this purpose can best be shown by a diagram (Fig. 3). ABCD is a strong and neatly made box open at both ends, and about two inches larger each way than the largest negative from which enlargements are to be made. E represents a section of a board which forms part of a window frame, a general view of which is given in Fig. 4. A detail of the box.Reverting to Fig. 3, F is an opening cut in the side of the negative box two inches or a little less from the back of the box, AD, and wide enough to admit the free passage of a negative in a kit or other holder. On the inside of the box are tacked strips, GGGG, to serve as a guide to the kit when placing it in the box. An opening similar to F should be made in the other side of the box to permit lateral adjustments when we come to use the apparatus, besides enabling us to put the negative in or withdraw it from either side. A convenient modification of the strips, G, is found by placing the front ones a short distance further forward, to wit, toward BC, as they are shown in the cut (Fig. 3), and tacking to them a piece of watch spring, H, this then serving both as a guide and as a means of pressing the kit or negative holder against the other strips, GG (Fig. 5).A side view of the box.J is a sheet of ground-glass, which is tacked over the opening when the box is firmly set in the board, E. It is well to have this ground-glass fixed in place so that it can be readily removed if desired.

The necessity for having the box at least two inches larger each way than the largest negative from which enlargements are to be made is shown in Fig. 6. A side view of the negative in the box.Here AB represents the negative in place, CA, DB and EG represent rays of light entering the box. It will be seen that the rays CA and DB strike the ground-glass at an angle, but nevertheless at an angle which results in their passing through it in a considerable degree. They strike the negative AB, but if the negative were the full size of the box, to wit FG, it will be seen that while the section AB would be fully lighted, the sections AF and BG would receive no oblique rays at all, and hence the negative would not be even approximately uniformly lighted. This point is too often overlooked in the construction of apparatus of this character, but is necessary in all cases of daylight enlarging and especially when direct sunlight is used. Now with the negative box in place, some arrangement must be made for holding the lens, which can be the lens used for making the negative. This for enlargements of a fixed size from negatives of a given size can be accomplished by simply extending the section BGGC Fig. 3, to a proper distance and placing the lens in the end of it; but this permits too little opportunity for adjustments and is not advisable. A double box, one sliding within the other, would be better, but still not quite satisfactory. It is far better to adapt one’s camera to the apparatus, and this can always be done; it being very simple with a reversible back camera, which can be backed right up to the opening, and more difficult but always possible with others. Fig. 7 shows the entire apparatus in place, and the manner in which it is used. AB is the window board, C is the negative box, D is the camera adjusted to the latter, E is the enlarging screen on an easel to hold the bromide paper, and F is the reflector. The screen on the easel can be made either to rest on the floor or on a table. It can be made to run on a track or otherwise, and it can also be made so as to admit of either vertical or lateral adjustment or both, or it can be nothing more than an ordinary box set on a table. But however constructed it must be considerably larger than the largest sheet of bromide paper which is to be used, thus allowing for nearly all necessary adjustments of the paper. It is preferably covered with white paper or fine blotter to aid in focusing. The reflector F is considerably larger than the negative-box, and adjusted at an angle which will reflect the light from the sky or sun evenly upon the ground glass. It is best covered with good white blotting paper. G is a hood which I have found useful in sunlight enlarging, especially in summer when the sun is almost overhead. It is placed on the outside of the window-frame, some distance above the ground-glass, and shields the latter from the direct rays of the sun, which would otherwise cause uneven illumination owing to their too great obliquity. The direct sun on the white reflector will give a light of high intensity. In winter, however, when the sun is low, it will fall directly on the ground-glass, and this, if the negative box be constructed as advised, is not objectionable, but on the contrary an advantage. In Fig. 4 the opening, FGHI, represents a sheet of ruby glass, and can be screened while focusing if found to interfere with the worker’s convenience in that operation.

The apparatus as sketched will suffice for all ordinary work. Modifications of it will depend upon the ingenuity of the man who attempts to design or construct one. It should be noted that the distance of the ground-glass from the negative has its influence in the strength of the light, and it is better to have this distance not over two inches. If less than one inch, however, the diffusion of light is not so good. When the light is weak the ground-glass can be removed entirely; the negative will thus be viewed directly against the white reflector. Very strong negatives giving undue contrasts may also be dealt with in this way. Or, if the light is too strong for flat negatives, the reflector can be removed entirely, or to the same end a sheet of yellow glass can be substituted for the ground-glass, thus increasing contrasts. In fact, a very useful and easily arranged modification of the negative-box consists of an opening in the top of the box inside the room through which can be dropped an extra sheet of ground-glass or opal to cut down the light, or of yellow glass to increase contrast. This opening should be at the point K, Fig. 3.

I have referred to a kit as being the proper arrangement for holding the negative. This, after much tribulation in working with home-made contrivances, I have found to be the best arrangement. They come a size or two larger than the negative with which they are to be used, and can easily be cut down to the proper dimensions. With it, also, other kits to hold smaller negatives can readily be used. It is also simple with them to fasten the negatives in place. If they extend beyond the box on either side so much the better; greater lateral adjustment can then be made. The negative box, Fig. 3, is best painted dead black inside in the section GBCG, and white in the section AGGD. The reasons for this will be obvious at a glance.

In enlarging from films it is well to place them between two sheets of glass of proper size, and fasten the whole in the kit or negative-holder. For this purpose use thin glass without flaws or scratches. If the films are smaller than the opening in the kit, it is well to paste a black mat on one of the glasses, when, after proper adjustment, the film will remain in place between the two glasses with very little pressure.

Enlarged negatives are very easily made with the apparatus described. A contact positive can be made, preferably on carbon transparency tissue, and from this the enlargement made, or an enlarged positive made first, and from this a contact negative. The latter plan is preferable, since it admits of retouching on both positive and negative. Slow plates should be used throughout. For those who do not care to go to the expense of experimenting with large plates, I would suggest that good contact positives be first made and from these negatives on bromide paper, Standard A, soft. These negatives are treated as already described. The best positive for this purpose is a thin one with full gradations of tone from clear high light to deep shadow, without veil or fog, but free from any suspicion of flatness.