Color printing basics:

Set your color enlarger to a filtration of about 90 Yellow, 50 Magenta. Leave the Cyan at 00. (It is usually not necessary to use Cyan filtration and most color corrections can be made by adjusting only the Y and M dials.) Compose and focus your negative on the easel with the enlarger at the "white" light setting and with the lens wide open. Before exposing your test strip, close the lens down one or two stops and set the enlarger head to the "high" setting, which brings the filters into the light path. (The "low" setting maintains the same filtration but reduces light intensity by about two f-stops and is useful for thin negatives.) Do a test strip as you would in b/w printing, but using a full-sheet of 8"x10" paper. Never put a piece of paper smaller than this through the Colenta machine because it may jam. Then evaluate the test for two things:

• overall density (lightness/darkness) to determine exposure.
• overall color to determine color corrections needed.

Color correcting: There are six possible color shifts for which you might need to make a color correction:

• the additive primary colors: red, green, blue
• the subtractive primary colors: cyan, magenta, yellow

Additive and subtractive colors a linked as complements as follows:

• red - cyan
• green - magenta
• blue -yellow

This means that making a print less red is the same thing as making it more cyan, making a print less magenta is the same as making it more green, etc. You must memorize these complements.

For practical purposes of color correcting, think of these six possible color shifts as falling into two groups:

• warm colors: yellow, magenta, red
• cool colors: blue, green, cyan

To figure out the color correction needed, ask yourself whether the primary color cast that you wish to eliminate is warm or cool. The rule is:

if trying to eliminate a warm color, add filtration

if trying to eliminate a cool color, subtract filtration

Use the following as a guide:

if print is too: then do this:

yellow: dial up yellow

magenta: dial up magenta

red: dial up Y & M equally

blue: dial down yellow

green: dial down magenta

cyan: dial down Y & M equally

When dialing up filtration, especially magenta, you'll need to add a small amount to your exposure time to compensate for the filtration you've added (which reduces the intensity of the enlarger lamp). Conversely, when dialing down filtration, especially magenta, you'll need to subtract a little exposure time.

Begin by correcting the major color shift in the print, but keep in mind that there may be more than one color that you'll need to correct (there usually is). For example, a print can be too yellow and too green at the same time, requiring an increase in yellow filtration and a decrease in magenta filtration.

Kodak color viewing filters can be a helpful aid in learning to identify color shifts. It is common to confuse blue and cyan. Blue is closer to what we normally think of as purple. Cyan is closer to what we usually call turquoise.

When getting started, is would be helpful to print a negative that has at least some area of white or neutral gray in it, because the color shifts that need to be corrected will be most easily identified in this area. In other words, if you can adjust the color so that the white surface looks white or the gray surface look gray, then all the other colors in the print will fall into place.

Above all, you should remember that there is no one correct way of printing a color negative, that it is a subjective process and that the print is a transformation of what was photographed and not a match of it.

For more information, consult a textbook in color photography such as Exploring Color Photography by Robert Hirsch. Keep in mind, though, that you'll learn color printing not by hours of reading about it, but by hours of doing it. Good luck!