Pearl is the compromise between glossy and matt. It is also good for displaying prints in areas where there is lots of light from many directions as it will not pick up reflections on the surface. It is best for high key images or those which don’t have strong blacks. Matt gives dark grey not black when compared to a glossy print. It is not good for situations with lots of handling of prints.

There will be lots of reflections off the surface making fingerprints and other marks highly visible. Glossy gives deepest blacks and hence greatest contrast. It is much more difficult to use properly so I would suggest that you don’t use FB papers until you are making good prints with RC paper. The increase in density as prints dry is very difficult to judge, even for an experienced printer. This gives the ultimate quality, maximum black density and archival lifetime. You will be making good prints more quickly with RC paper.įB is for Fibre-Based. RC stands for resin-coated and is much easier and quicker to use. A leading example of this type of paper is Ilford Multigrade and it has effectively replaced graded papers for creative printing. You change the colour of the light used for the exposure to change the paper contrast. Variable Contrast, VC: This type of paper gives you all the contrasts from grades 0 to 5 in one box. Film needs to be processed so that the contrast of your films is roughly matched to the contrast of the paper.

Ilford for example only make grades 2 and 3 for Galerie graded paper. This has led to a considerable reduction in the use of these papers and a reduced range of grades being available to buy. If you need to change the contrast in a print you will have to buy another box of paper with different contrast. Graded: these are papers with fixed contrast. There are 2 basic types of darkroom printing papers: This means that they can be handled for exposure and processing under red or orange coloured lights. The papers are sensitive to blue and green light (as well as white light of course) but not orange and red. As the grade number increases so does the contrast. Normal contrast is around grade 2 or 3, low contrast is 0 and high contrast is 5. The scale can vary between manufacturers but typically the contrast range is numbered between grades 0 and 5. To make it easy to follow, numbers have been assigned to contrast levels and these are referred to as grades.

The key to good black and white printing is control of the contrast.

Test print image black and white