Black & white darkroom printing
Making a black & white darkroom print is one of the most rewarding processes in analogue photography. Using an enlarger, you project your film negative onto light-sensitive photographic paper, exposing it to create a latent image. With care, patience, and a bit of trial and error, you can make a finished print by hand—revealing your image through light, chemistry, and craft.
How darkroom printing works
At its core, printing a photograph in the darkroom is similar to exposing a photo in-camera. In both cases, light passes through a lens, striking a light-sensitive surface. When making a darkroom print, however, you're working with an enlarger instead of a camera, and with photographic paper instead of film.
The enlarger acts like a reversed camera. A light source inside the enlarger shines through your negative, and a lens focuses that image onto the paper below. This forms a latent image by exposing the silver halides within the paper, which only becomes visible once developed in chemicals.
Chemical process
The developing process typically involves three chemical stages, each in its own tray making it easy to move the print from one bath to another.
Developer: Brings out the latent image, converting the exposed silver halides into metallic silver.
- Time: 1–2 minutes
- Notes: Time varies based on temperature and paper type. Agitate gently and keep time consistent between prints.
Stop bath: Halts development immediately.
- Time: 10–30 seconds
- Notes: A short rinse to neutralise the developer and prepare the paper for fixing.
Fixer: Makes the image permanent and light-safe.
- Time: 2–5 minutes
- Notes: Ensures the image is fully fixed and archival. Agitate gently to prevent uneven fixing. For test prints or strips, a shorter fixing time can help speed up the process.
Determine exposure settings
There are two main ways to control how much light reaches the paper: aperture and exposure time. The aperture is the opening inside the enlarger’s lens, and exposure time is how long the light is on. These two settings work together to determine the final print’s exposure.
WARNING
Avoid changing the height of the enlarger after you’ve started making test strips or prints. Even a small adjustment will alter both the image size and exposure, requiring you to start again.
Aperture
Unlike in-camera exposure, the aperture in darkroom printing has less creative effect. It mainly controls how much light is projected, and can slightly affect sharpness due to lens performance.
For simplicity, beginner printers should stop the lens down two stops from wide open. This improves sharpness without requiring long exposures.
Exposure time
A timer connected to the enlarger switches the light on and off precisely. Most darkrooms use a digital or mechanical timer to set exposures in seconds.
To determine the right exposure, we use test strips—small sections of paper exposed at different times to find the best result. To make one:
- Cut a piece of photographic paper into a strip.
- Place it under the enlarger where your image will be.
- Cover most of the strip with card or black paper.
- Expose the first section (e.g. 2 seconds), then slide the cover to reveal the next section.
- Repeat until several sections have been exposed for increasing times (e.g. 2, 4, 6, 8 seconds).
After developing the strip, you can compare each section to see which exposure gives the best result.
TIP
We use an enlarger exposure scale in place of traditional test strips in our community darkroom. This helps reduce paper waste and helps keep test prints labelled and easy to understand.
Contrast filters
Contrast filters allow you to control the tonal range of your black and white prints. The contrast of a print affects how deep the blacks are, how bright the whites appear, and how much separation exists between different tones in your image.
You can control contrast either by selecting a specific type of photographic paper (graded) or by using contrast filters with multigrade paper.
Graded paper
Graded paper has a fixed contrast level, and each grade corresponds to a different level of contrast:
- Grade 0–1: Low contrast – useful for taming very contrasty negatives.
- Grade 2: Medium contrast – considered a standard starting point.
- Grade 3–5: High contrast – helps boost flat or underexposed negatives.
The paper’s grade is usually printed on the box or individual packaging, often as a number. When using graded paper, choose a grade based on your negative’s density and the look you want to achieve and disable or remove any contrast filters in your enlarger.
Multigrade paper
Multigrade paper is more flexible. It responds to coloured contrast filters placed in the light path of your enlarger. These filters adjust the paper’s contrast without needing to switch to a different type of paper.
- Lower-numbered filters (00–1): Produce softer, low-contrast prints.
- Middle filters (2–3): Provide a standard or balanced contrast.
- Higher-numbered filters (4–5): Produce stronger, high-contrast prints.
Contrast filters are often part of a numbered set from 00 (softest) to 5 (hardest). Each filter alters the way different wavelengths of light reach the paper, effectively changing how the paper responds to the image being projected.
You’ll often find multigrade paper labelled with terms like “variable contrast”, “VC” or "MG" on the box. It's the most commonly used paper in modern darkrooms because of its adaptability—ideal for both test prints and final prints across a range of negatives.
Printing workflow
The diagram below provides a visual overview of the darkroom printing process for black and white photographs. This workflow is designed to help you understand the sequence of actions, and the role of creative decision-making along the way.
Darkroom printing workflow digram
INFO
Notes such as “Increase exposure” or “Decrease contrast fade” are intended as helpful prompts rather than precise instructions—they should be approached with your best judgement based on the image you’re printing and the results you’re seeing.
Once you’ve made a final print you’re happy with, decide how many copies to make. It’s easier to make extra prints now, while your enlarger and settings are dialled in, than trying to recreate the same print later.
In the next section, we'll explore how to wash and dry prints to ensure they last for decades to come.