in black&white photography enlargement, is main light turned on when you put the film on the negative holder?

Question

do you call it the film or the negative? is there a difference?

Answer 1

if the film has already been developed and it is dry and ready to enlarge, then you can turn on the main light in the darkroom to place the negative in the negative carrier. you need to switch to safelights to open the box of photo paper and make the enlargement of course. if you are talking about developing the film, it is light sensitive all the way until after the fixer, so no light can be used.

Answer 2

The film is the developed part that came from the camera. A negative (the image on the film) is what hold back light where it is dark (makes image white) and lets through light where it is blank (makes image dark).
No you never turn on main light while the light sensitive paper is uncovered. If you are clumsy you can turn it on to get the film into the holder but that is a bad habit to have since sooner or later you will forget to shut it off. If you did turn on the light then the light-sensitive paper would go dark everywhere not just where the negative tells it. You would have no white in the image just all dark.

Answer 3

I used to print with only one enlarger in the room so I didn't have to worry about exposing someone elses photographic paper. That said, with the room lights off, I would turn on the enlarging light to place the negative into the enlarger. This allowed me to view the surface of the negative to see if I missed any dust on the negative. I saved myself a lot of retouching dust stops over the years by doing this. Of course you are losing a little bulb life because of this but i think it is worth it.

Answer 4

what main light are you talking about? the overhead light in the darkroom? a developed negative is safe to view under any lighting situation.
if you're talking about the enlarger light that is also safe but not very nice to people around you. opening the negative carrier holder with the enlarger light on can expose another person's paper and cause a grayed or ruined image.

Answer 5

You do not put film in the negative carrier, you put the negative that contains the image you are about to enlarge.
Yes there is a difference: the film has no image at all, is sensitive to light and is exposed in the camera, once it receive the light, we said the "the film has been exposed" and we proceed to develop it to produce the negative.

Answer 6

you need a some white light in order to select which negative to enlarge, let alone how to get it into the carrier the right way up etc. if you're working in large darkroom with other people there should be a lightbox in an adjoining room, or let alone a space you can go outside to check your prints in natural (or atleast white) light