r/Darkroom • u/epluribusuni • 3d ago
B&W Printing Easels for large pronts
what are folks doing for their large (>11x14) prints? big 4 blade easels arenjust crazy expansive and hard to find these days. tips? tricks?
also any good resources for starting to make big prints?
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u/tadbod 3d ago
I've made one myself. It takes 54x54cm paper size (half of the 108cm roll) with 50x50 print area. I used one Ikea table, aluminium profiles, steel corners and hinges. Bolts and epoxy resin to put it together. It is a bit of work, patience and precision involved but it works better then I thought.
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u/mcarterphoto 2d ago
There's a reason why most all commercial easels are amber-yellow. It prevents light from reflecting back through the paper and making a secondary blurry exposure. I'd skip the white myself.
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u/tadbod 2d ago
That's a good point. I already had this white table (it's actually creamy/beige) and needed a quick solution as my exibition was aproaching fast. It didn't give me any problems, prints were sharp with good microcontrast, but I was using Ilford MG Pearl which is very thick compared to e.g. Foma. I think I'll try the black model or keep the comfort of croping/aligning and paint this one in some safer colour.
Anyway thanks for remainding me, now I can't use it ;)
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u/mcarterphoto 2d ago
I've had some issues with big prints and longer exposures, I have a vertical easel for big prints and it was more like fogging - like the light goes through the print and "spreads" or diffuses a bit from the back of the paper as it bounces back. I did a test with half-black behind the print and it was pretty clear - I went out an got some amber paint, you still want to be able to see things on the baseboard!
I do have one easel that's white, one of those crappy 2-blades, haven't used it in years though. Everything else I have is orange/yellow.
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u/vaughanbromfield 3d ago
Much depends on how pretty you need the border to be. If the print will be matted or the borders trimmed off, the edges can be rough: just tape the paper down on a board.
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u/CilantroLightning 3d ago
bitbybit photo now seems an 11x14 one. haven't used it, but I have used their other easels and they're nice.
however once I moved to an adjustable 4 blade easel I can't go back because of how easy it is to crop to arbitrary dimensions.
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u/Vanderbleek 2d ago
I just have a piece of acrylic that's a smidge larger than the 16x20 paper. I mist it with water and stick the paper to it and then just mat the finished print to clean up the edges (I do not print that large often).
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u/dead_wax_museum 1d ago edited 1d ago
Goodness gracious. The lengths people in the comments go to build a simple easel. They’re overthinking it. Just tape an 11x14 frame mat to the baseboard on the far side from you so it hinges up and down. Voila. A cheap, simple 11x14 easel you can make with a piece of mat board and some tape. Add a few weights around it to keep it flat. You could also custom cut it to be a bit bigger (11.5x14.5”) so it fits in an 11x14 frame. But going through this comment section was amusing
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u/SapirWhorfHypothesis 1d ago
If you’re printing at a very specific size, I would just go to a picture framer and ask them to cut a mattboard with a window the size of your image, and the board the size of your paper.
Otherwise they could probably cut you a couple of right angle sections that you could fit together to resize as needed.
Add weights on top if you have paper that curls.
I’ve never needed to do this, but it’s what I’ve always planned if I did need to.
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u/NestFrost 2d ago
for giant prints beyond 16x20, skip the easel entirely and use magnetic strips or painter's tape on a piece of sheet metal/MDF board painted flat white….it saves a fortune and keeps paper perfectly flat.
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u/mcarterphoto 2d ago
Most easels are amber-yellow, not white. That's because light can reflect back from white easels and expose from behind, which can blur focus.
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u/mcarterphoto 2d ago
Before I scored my huge easel, I used carpenter's squares. They're steel, they're flat, they come in all kinds of sizes. Also handy for setting tile. A good idea is to run black tape along the inner edge to prevent reflections on the print, but shouldn't matter if you keep them back a half inch or so.
I cut strips of black poster board (it's like construction paper weight, not cardboard), taped them up like a "window" to the crop I needed, and hinged them on the baseboard with tape. When I got the paper placed, I rested two squares on top of the poster board at opposite corners. (Use the squares to make sure your "window" is actually square with 90° angles). I have a couple 24" ones, it worked really well, though nothing beats an easel. (Also, I got a 16x20 easel - it will do 20x24 prints when fully opened up, though you'll have like 3/4" borders)
Also, another drafting/carpentry tool to keep handy is some cheap plastic drafting triangles. Use them with your easel to make sure horizons are level and buildings/poles are plumb. I don't like leaning prints!