wrote:
Here's a question that I haven't seen asked on the internet: how does
one become a master printer? I'm not looking for a quick recipe, but I
want to know what it takes. Is it a matter of getting a good
background in photography at a school, landing a job in a lab, honing
your craft for years, and building a reputation? I'd really appreciate
it if the printers out there could share how they did it. How did you
become a master printer?

I am probably going to get blasted by somebody for this but I would
recommend doing some playing of the images with a program like
Photoshop. Getting a feel for the range of densities in the negative
and what it takes to translate these into a print will help when doing
optical prints. This will also help show you what negatives there is
simply no hope for making a good print from. If there is too small a
density range in the negative it is going to be very hard to make a
good optical print from it even using high contrast paper.

It would also help to bracket your shots for a while to get a feel for
what exposure will produce what kind of print. I have seen more bad
prints from underexposed negatives then over, some experimentation will
give you are feel for this. For my own part when I see a light
negative I know it is going to be a problem getting any kind of good
print from it.

It has been a while since I have done an optical print but the
fundamental problems remain the same. Most of the poor prints I have
seen are missing either the full white or good blacks. It can be more
then a little tricky to get the shadows exposed far enough to get good
blacks and yet keep the highlights white. So what is the definition of
a master printer, one who can take a negative that has highlights that
are not nearly dense enough and still get a good print using burning
and dodging or someone who only prints from negatives that have a good
range to start with?

There is a lot of science and math to really understanding the whole
photographic process, it is well worth while learning it well.

On a business aspect of it, I believe you are going to have a hard time
finding a good client base that wants prints done from a "master
printer". I assume you are thinking about making prints from others
negatives. Most of the people I know that are still having optical
prints made are doing so themselves. I think you are looking at a
very small market.

Scott