ABSTRACT
MAKING A TEST STRIP 6. In ‘safelight’ only, cut a 2cm strip off a sheet of photographic paper using a pair of scissors or a guillotine. Return the rest of the paper to the bag and seal it. 7. Place the strip of photographic paper, emulsion side up, on the baseboard (on your pearl or gloss paper the emulsion side will reflect the red darkroom lights). 8. Place a strip of negatives of average exposures on top of the strip of paper. If you have a clear negative file you do not need to remove them. 9. Cover the photographic paper and the negative with the clean sheet of glass and ensure that both are in close contact. Press down if necessary. 10. Cover up 3/4 of the test strip with a piece of card. 11. Set the enlarger timer to 4 seconds and expose the first 1/4 of the strip. 12. Uncover one further 1/4 and expose for a further 4 seconds. Repeat process until all the paper has been exposed. 13. Process the test strip in trays of developer, stop and fix. 14. Examine the test strip in daylight conditions. Choose the best exposure from the test strip and set the enlarger timer accordingly. If all the exposures are too light then increase the exposure times for a second test strip. If all the exposures are too dark close the lens aperture down 1 more stop. 15. Expose all of the negative strips onto one sheet of printing paper and process.
