unsharp mask(s)?

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Recently i have noticed references to prints made with unsharp masks or selective dodging masks. i am assuming based on the way the sentence is written that this has something to do with MultiContrast printing. Can someone sheld some light and/or suggest more specific references areas. Unfortunalty it appears more and more likely that graded papers are going to be more difficult to find and i need to start hedging against that day when they no longer exist. Thanks.

-- Ann Clancy (clancya@mediaone.net), January 16, 2002

Answers

Ann they are not refering to multicontrast filters, what they refer to is the physical making of a "mask" or a positive with very low densities, once to make this mask by contact printing your negative onto a piece of film you use this sandwich to make your print. The effect this has is to lower the contrast and sort of "dodge" the areas that had a little bit of density on the mask. As to selective dodging it refers to making a sandwich on your negative carrier that has the film at the bottom, a piece of diffusing material on top of the film and on top of the diffusion material a piece of film, or paper etc, where you have drawn either with a marker or a pen or pencil the areas you want "dodged". If you are interested in this chek out Lynn Radeka's site and you will get a better explanation that I have just given you.

www.radekaphotography.com

I hope this helped.

-- Jorge Gasteazoro (jorgegm58@prodigy.net.mx), January 16, 2002.


There were two good articles by Howard Bond in Photo Techniques magazine last year on what you referred to as the "selective dodging" technique. The articles were fairly detailed and gave pretty good information on the technique. I believe they were in the September/October and November/December issues (though they could be one issue earlier). If you can't locate them, let me know and I'll see if I can find mine and send you a copy of the articles. Jorge gave you a fairly good summary of the method. It would be hard to use with a 35mm format, and is oriented towards medium and large format. It is simplier and less complex than unsharp masking, which is a completely different technique (I'll let others more knowledgable address that part of your question).

-- Jim Rock (jameswrock@aol.com), January 16, 2002.

Chapter and verse on masking can be found in McNutt's and Jilg's original articles, which appeared in Photo Techniques. View Camera ran articles by Alan Ross a year or two back on selective dodging masks.

http://hps.vanguard.edu/Photo/PhotographicInterests.html

Cheers, DJ.

-- N Dhananjay (dhananjay-nayakankuppam@uiowa.edu), January 16, 2002.


Greetings,

In addition to all of the excellent sources listed above, Ctein's "Post Exposure" contains some very good info on making unsharp masks for both B&W and color printing.

Regards,

-- Pete Caluori (pcaluori@hotmail.com), January 17, 2002.


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