[Dave]

Was reading an article the other day where the Pro Photographer believed having experience of developing & personally printing from film in a darkroom gave you an advantage when manipulating shots in Photo Shop etc.

Got me wondering if others thought was true & how many had actually used a darkroom before ?

I did have a basic B&W dark room in the spare bedroom years ago, so I taught myself the basics of burning & dodging, which helps a bit. As I didn't use it that much I can't really comment on if it's helped me that much moving forward

Anybody else got a view ?

[Gary Bagshawe]

I have done a lot of developing in a darkroom, and I feel that the experience has helped when using ps. The biggest problem is knowing what you want to achieve and then finding out how to do it in ps. Thank heavens for "Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Photographer" by Martin Evening

[Dabhand16]

Interesting question. I too still have some of my old 'lollypops' and rember the frantic hand waving that would only reveal the result after some developing dish agitation. I guess that someone who has never had the 'pleasure' of wet processing could get the same results with a computer, but with the advantage of more certainty, and in the knowledge that if it went wrong, the 'undo' command can set you off again from the last correct point. I guess that computers save a lot of time in this respect. To address your original question, I don't think that experience of wet processing is a necessity, but any knowledge is an advantage that can be utilised in any situation. The ability to 'edit' a photo with either the black art of dodging and burning, or by using software will probably end up in the same place, but by a different vehicle.

[Joe T]

What's a darkroom?

[silkstone]

Originally Posted by Joe T

What's a darkroom?

Something you have to sit in for a while when you get your credit card statement.

Well, I've done some b/w D&P and also some Cibachrome printing, and I suppose it did help me to understand the difference between dodge and burn, but also it hit my credit card quite hard (see above ) especially for Cibachrome, and the whole house reeked of acetic acid. I don't really miss it.

[MickB]

Nothing like the 1st time you see your print appear though under all those chemicals. Something quite magical about it.

Don't miss drying prints though

[Ally]

The photography course that i'm going to start in august is black and white film!. So my DSLR is no use looking forward to it tho

[Toonie]

I do miss the darkroom, but I can make mistakes a lot faster using the computer

[noah]

used wet black and white a while back, great fun. i've shot far more film than i've developed myself tho, but i would like to have another go at developing given the chance.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Toonie

I do miss the darkroom, but I can make mistakes a lot faster using the computer

ROFL

[Gary Bagshawe]

The press agency I used to work for held a record for the fastest turnaround of undeveloped film to dry print for the wire, I think is was around the 70-80 second mark, that developer was bl###y warm I can tell ya.

[noah]

strewth that's fast

[Mike]

I did do some home D&P about 20 years ago, all in colour. Unfortunately not having a room available for leaving the gear set up ( all Patterson equipment), the novelty of making a room completely light tight soon wore off.

Mike