This is Just a little something i snapped about three weeks ago. I thought it turned out nice, but i wish i could get the shadows black, this isn't the final print though, i only made two and the final i had to mount and turn in for credit. Tell me what ya think.

Devin

Keep on Rockin in the free world

Well going from bright sunshine in the foreground to deep shadow in the background you're setting yourself a tough challenge.

I can see 0,0,0 in the blacks, on the nack of her neck and in her hair.
In the canyon wall in the background, there is shadow detail, subtle, but there.

It's hard trying to remember 25 years ago in my darkroom, and harder without the negative.
I wonder if a grade less contrasty paper, and a little less exposure would improve this?

On my monitor this looks over exposed. The histogram here is misleading, I think. But this looks like a scan of the print, not an indication of the detail that's there in the negative.

Well going from bright sunshine in the foreground to deep shadow in the background you're setting yourself a tough challenge.

I can see 0,0,0 in the blacks, on the nack of her neck and in her hair.
In the canyon wall in the background, there is shadow detail, subtle, but there.

It's hard trying to remember 25 years ago in my darkroom, and harder without the negative.
I wonder if a grade less contrasty paper, and a little less exposure would improve this?

On my monitor this looks over exposed. The histogram here is misleading, I think. But this looks like a scan of the print, not an indication of the detail that's there in the negative.

Well, i don't know what your saying about the "0,0,0", explain that to me please. The paper i really have no choice becasue all of the black and white stuff i do is done at school, and i am using Arista RC Pear paper. That's all i got, i also had to use a fred # 4 filter on this to take the grey out of the print. The total time on this print is 17.3 seconds. The time on the print you are seeing is 16.2 seconds with the enlarger f-stop at 8. Maybe there is something you could help me with in the printing section of the photo, so let me know. Thanks
Devin

Using an editing program you can view the scanned photo, it's made up of red/green/blue on the computer. To make true black or white, it should be 0,0,0 (no red, no green, no blue) for black and 255,255,255 (maximum red, greeen and black) for brightest white.
The scan has both darkest black and peak white.

Does the negative have detail in the highlights? Because I find the skin in the sun, the trousers and the headband all lacking in detail that I would hope is in the negative. If the image isn't all there in the negative (there is shadow detail) then you won't get the bright highlights no matter what you do.

Have you done a test strip across the print at different exposure times?
I would always do that for an important print, because I didn't have an enlarger exposure meter.

If you can't change the grade of the paper, I'm going to have to go back to a textbook to see how to change the contrast in the print.
I always had the luxury, even at college, of changing the paper in order to change the image.
I never went as far as developing negatives differently for particular scenes, not on the course that I did, and never in the home lab either.

my post is bit off your question on getting the shadows black, but consider...

the large dark background shadow at the top of the photo pulls your eye way from the girl. assuming you want the focus on her, you may want to consider cropping-off the photo top to remove this large background shadow area. otherwise, further darking of the shadows will create a stronger pull of the eye to the dark 'mass' in the upper photo and away from focusing on her.