Anyone tried this? If so how reliable is this theory? Seems as though the exposure to the paper would be the same for ALL negatives of a particular film type. I shoot Delta 400. Here's what the article said...(posted 8837 days ago)1. Put the blank film in your negative carrier just as you would if it contained a negative. 2. Make a test strip by placing a piece of cardboard over your photo paper (leave one inch of paper exposed to the enlarger light) and expose for five seconds. Keep in mind that most photo papers REQUIRE an exposure of at least 20 seconds to achieve a full tonal range! 3. Move the cardboard to show another inch of paper and expose it for another five seconds. 4. Repeat #3 until you run out of paper. 5. Develop it fully.You should end up with a test strip that has exposures from 5 to 50 seconds.
Look carefully at the test strip. Follow the gradually darkening strips until you find the place where two stripes in a row are the same tone. This test strip indicates that the clear part of the negative will print black at 35 seconds. This should be the printing time you use for all the prints from this roll of film. Yes, I know it doesn't sound like it should work but here's how you do it: Set your print time for the blacks and use paper contrast grade to compensate for the whites. If, at 35 seconds (for this roll of film) your whites come out gray, use a higher contrast grade paper to compress the tonal range. If the whites blow out (print without any detail) use a lower contrast grade paper to expand the tonal range. This is how it is meant to happen. It's called printing for base density plus fog.