ABSTRACT
This chapter begins the practical introduction to those skills that will culminate in a full understanding of the gumoil process and its variants. The objective for printing in gumoil is first to make a large positive image on an otherwise transparent sheet of film. After a little experience with the development process, it should become fairly easy to judge film positives for their potential printing qualities. Exposure and development values can be noted on the envelopes or on the film margins. The advantage of duplicating film is that it allows a direct transition from continuous tone negatives to continuous tone enlarged positives or negatives, but these films are relatively expensive, and in the author's experience, they do not regularly yield the contrast necessary for good gumoil prints. Large transparencies, negatives or positives, are easy to manipulate. The best positive transparency, for gumoil purposes, usually has slightly more contrast than one might want in an ideal finished silver print.
