In this first part of the series I explain how a black and white print responds to exposure. I also begin the discussion on how to use a densitometer. Although densitometers have traditionally been very expensive they can be purchased on website offering used equipment, and the cost now is very reasonable. You can also find them in darkroom rental facilities and photolabs still using conventional darkrooms and chemistry.
Note that densitometers should be available at darkroom rental facilities as well as conventional photo labs (if they are still in business).
I mention at one point that I use a diffusion enlarger as opposed to a condenser enlarger. When I started photography my father had a condenser type enlarger and that was what I used. The advantage, of course, was that a condenser had a larger "focus range." When printing the focus range seemed to be extended so that even if your negative was not aligned perfectly with the lens or printing plane prints were relatively sharp. The problem was that even small specks of dust also printed very sharp and much spotting of prints was needed.
The benefit of using a diffused enlarger is that you have softer light to allow a greater range of densities as well as hiding some of the dust spots and flaws that may sit above the glass negative carrier. The answer to the focus problem is to call my good friend and colleague Richard Politowski who uses a Zig Align system to level enlargers. It is a mirror system to projects led lights back and forth between mirrors to align the 3 stages in an enlarger to ensure perfect focus.

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