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Building a Darkroom: Design
This page is about designing a darkroom. Included is information about choosing the location, and content, as well as the actual layout.Contents
What are you going to do in your darkoom?What does the room need to have?
Find the best location for your darkroom
Should I make my darkroom permenant or temporary?
Laying out items for your darkroom
Designing a Darkroom Layout
What are you going to do in your darkoom?
Before you start designing a darkroom, you must know the purpose of your darkroom.Why have a darkroom?
| Don't need one | Want one anyway |
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Are you going to develop Color negatives or slides?
This loses it's charm quickly. There is little or no leeway in developing color negatives and slides. Any changes in temperature or time result in color shifts. It costs more to do this (especially if you include your time) than to have it done at a good lab. And at a lab, you get 3x5 or 4x6 prints too. I wouldn't recommend this unless you are doing a lot, and I mean an awful lot, of films yourself.Are you going to develop Black & White negatives?
I don't know why you would do this and not make prints, but if this is all you do in the darkoom, then don't bother making a darkroom. You can get a light-tight changing bag and process your negatives just about anywhere. However, if you are going to make prints, then processing negatives in a darkroom is a good idea. It's a bit easier than the changing bag, and you can have a dedicated area. For this, you want to have tanks (or trays for some sheet film), washers, and something to hang the films on to dry.Are you going to make Black & White prints?
This, for me, is the reason for a darkroom, making Black & White enlargements, cropping, burning, and dodging to make the "perfect print". To do this in a darkroom, you need an enlarger, a sink (debatable, but definitely easier with a sink), print trays, print washer, paper cutter, lots of storage, print drying racks, and a tempered water supply.Are you going to make Color prints?
As with negatives, below, regular prints in color are a tedious process that have no advantage, to me anyway, over using a lab. However, when it comes to making an enlargement, it's nice to be able to do that in my own darkroom. But if you're only going to do a few a year, it's a big expense. You need special filters for the enlarger, or better yet, a color head. You can process color prints in room temperature chemicals, but they don't come out as good (my opinion) as they do in the more temperature stringent chemicals. Don't think that you'll save money processing your own enlargements, you won't.What size prints are you going to make?
Enlargers make prints of different sizes two ways, one is to use a different focal length lens. That can lead to distortion, light drop off, and other things that make this method unatractive. The other method is to move the head of the enlarger different distances from the printing surface. An enlarger, therefore, has a maximum print size for a specific negative size and lens focal length combination. This maximum can be circumvented by either turning the enlarger head so that it is pointing on the wall, or the ceiling or the floor, thus giving you a different distance, or by allowing the baseboard to rise and fall beyond the bottom of the enlarger support. If none of this is making sense, don't worry about it, just remember that to make prints other than the "normal" size, you'll either have to have a movable baseboard, or be able to project onto the wall.Are you the only one who is going to use the darkroom?
Think about this before you decide on table and sink heights, or locations of light switches. Remember to provide a place to rest during those long processes. You should allow yourself some comforts, like a radio or a telephone extension.What does the room need to have?
Water Supply
Most processing in the darkroom requires water, however you don't need running water. The part of the process that uses the most water is washing, and that does not have to be done in the darkoom, nor does it have to be done in running water. Years ago, people developed in horse drawn wagons, and the process was much more difficult then too. So it can be done. Having running water makes a lot of things a lot easier though. In my first darkroom, I ran garden hoses from the washing machine supply faucets to a faucet in the darkroom. In my second darkroom, I built a plumbing board, with water filters, temperature controls, and the works. That board can be supplied by garden hoses again, or it can be attached to the house plumbing like a sink. This might be an appropriate place to tell you how I got the plumbing into my current darkroom. When we were looking for a house to buy, I was always on the lookout for where to put the darkroom. When we found the house we wanted, and it was still under construction, I asked the builder to rough out a set of sink plumbing through the wall behind the laundry room into the garage. (OK, I cheated) You probably won't be that lucky, but if you have a sink or other plumbing on one side of a wall, it is usually pretty easy to have plumbing put on the wall on the opposite side, or to have plumbing continued along a wall in either direction.Drainage
You'll need a good, safe way to dispose of your effluent. You could use a bucket, if you have low volumes, or a barrel for higher volumes. But you'll need a way to get that water down a drain, with sufficient diluting water, after sessions. Or you can let the water evaporate and leave a sludge which you can take to a waste disposal site. It is usually easy to tap into the washing machine drain, like I did in my first darkroom. In my second darkroom, I was lucky enough to have a sink drain right where I wanted the room, so I went right into that.Electricity
This is almost a requirement. I've never seen a battery operated enlarger before. You can run it into the room in three ways, extension cords, on the wall wiring, or in the wall wiring. This is an area where you should definitely check with your building codes, and possibly hire an electrician. A funny thing I found regarding wiring, some codes would rather have you have 50 extension cords near water than on the wall wiring! At any rate you need to have electricity near your darkroom. The outlet that you tap into should be a Ground Fault Interrupter (GFI). This is kind of like an extra fuse, more local to the use of electricity. If you use extension cords, keep them high on the walls, out of the way of water. Use a cord that is large enough to handle the power demands in your room. Never use a cord that is frayed (I shouldn't have to say that) For on the wall wiring, you can use an extension cord to the first box from a GFI receptacle, then run the wiring where you need it in the room. For in the wall wiring, make sure you use a GFI at the start of the circuit. Be sure to provide all the outlets you will need, in advance. It can be a real mess to open a wall after the darkroom is in service!Thermostatic comfort
In the winter, the room should be warm enough to work without gloves on, and in the summer not so hot that you are sweating on the paper. The more you can control the temperature the better, since most darkoom processes function better between about 65°F and 90°F (18°C to 32°C).Darkness
Not dankness. Not blackness. Not dungeon. Not cave-like. Just the ability to make the room completely dark, and dark is not black. Here's an experiment, cover your eyes with your hands, keeping your eyes open, try to block out all the light. Can you block out all the light? I can. Most people can. Look at your hands, are they black? Unless you've just come in from changing the oil on your car... The best color for a darkroom is (my opinion) flat white. That way when you want to light the room, you can, with low wattage lights.Storage
You need to store chemicals, paper, tools, books, datasheets, tanks, trays, and on and on and on. Provide for enough cabinets or shelves for a lot of stuff. On the wet side, there are bottles of chemicals, film tanks, paper drums, trays, tongs, beakers, graduates, towels, etc. On the dry side there are reference materials, paper, film, canisters, tools, timers, etc. There is never enough storage in a darkoom. Just when you think you have enough, someone comes out with a great new book, and it won't fit on your shelves.Space
Provide yourself more space than you think you'll need. I always found some piece of paper, or device that I needed to have nearby that needed counter a place for it. A two foot aisle is sufficient for one person, but not two or more, and no matter how much your wife, husband, spousal equivalent, son, daughter, father, mother, etc. say they will never want to come in the darkroom, they will always find some excuse to check on you at one time or another, make sure you have a place they can stand and be out of the way.Counter size
You'll need a counter or table top large enough to hold your enlarger baseboard / easel, timers, papersafe (unless you build it into a drawer), light box, dodging and burning tools, focus tool, paper cutter, and other miscellaneous items. You'd have barely enough room with twice the size of the enlarger base, be safe with about 4' by 2' and be comfortable with anything over 7' by 28".You might decide to have an enlarger that is not mounted on a counter top for one of a myriad reasons, if you do you'll need the space that that takes up, plus additional counter space.
Sink size
Start by measuring your trays, 8x10 trays are about 9x11, 11x14 trays are about 12x16. Decide how many you want to use, developer, stop, pre-fix, fix, rinse, wash-aid, wash or print washer (and how big is it?). Allow yourself at least 2" separation between trays. This will allow you to figure out how big you need your sink to be. A 4' by 2' sink allowed me to use 3 8x11 trays and a print washer with sufficient room around the trays, 4 8x10 trays and a print washer without enough room between the trays, so splashing became a concern, or 4 11x14 trays, with no room between the trays. My new sink is 86" x 24", and I have room for 6 8x10 trays and a print washer with ample separation, so I can get a complete set of 8x10 trays and washer, I can get 6 11x14 trays without a print washer in the sink, with ample room between. This lets me have developer, stop, fix 1, fix 2, rinse 1, and rinse 2.Creature Comforts
This would include things like a radio, telephone, place to put your pop cans, trash cans, etcetera.ventilation
Darkroom chemicals, especially color processing chemicals, can be dangerous to your health if you breath them too long. Good ventilation will help. Also, the right kind of ventilation will reduce dust in the darkroom, rather than increase it.Find the best location for your darkroom
Proximity to resources
As stated above, you need access to water, electricity, ventilation, and storage. Locate your darkroom near these things, you'll appreciate it later.Use existing structures
If you are building a room, try to build off of an existing wall. Try to build it on the other side of a bathroom or laundry room, where there is plumbing in the wall that you can use within your darkoom. Electrical outlets already in the wall can be a good starting point too. Just remember to put in a GFI circuit.Outside ventilation
If you can have one wall leading to the outside of the house, then you can vent directly to the outside, and not worry about the fumes penetrating the house.Take advantage of the home temperature control system
If you put your darkroom inside the house, or at least the garage or basement, you can let the house heater and air conditioner keep your room at a comfortable temperature.Contaminants
Be careful of contaminants where you put the room. If you put it in the basement, watch for mold and mildew. In the garage you may have to deal with dust. Maybe you need to get a filter for the air, or maybe you should just avoid that location all together.Should I make my darkroom permenant or temporary?
This will depend on your circumstances, but here are some random thoughts I've developed over the years regarding this dilema.| Temporary Darkrooms | Permenant Darkrooms | |
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Laying out items for your darkroom
Obtain some grid paper. Determine a scale to use, based on your room size and the number of squares across the page. If you have 1/4" (6mm) sqare, for example, and your room is 8' (2.5m) square, then the entire room can fit on one page if you use a scale of each square represents 3" (75mm). Figure it out yourself, room size divided by number of squares is the scale to use. Round up to the next even number. You will use the same scale for the room drawing and the item drawings. That way you can lay the item drawings on the room drawing to see if they fit. Don't use a scale of more than 3" (75mm) per square, since you might want to draw the vertical representation too, and that will probably by 8' (2.5m) tall. For each item in your darkroom, draw the outline, including space for any clearance restrictions. These do not need to be exact, however err on the side of making the drawing bigger than the item. After drawing all the items, photocopy the sheets, so you have an original set in case you wear out the ones you are working with, then cut out your items so you can place them on the floor plan that you will draw next.Items to plan
| Any Darkroom | Color Printing | Black & White Printing |
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Storage space
Enlarger Paper Cutter Counter Room Lights ventilation Radio Telephone | Color Processor |
Processing Trays
Sink large enough for trays Print washer Plumbing supply Safelight(s) |
Designing a Darkroom Layout
Using grid paper, draw the room to scale. If you are going to build the room, then draw the area to scale. On this drawing, mark the location of the hot water, cold water, drain, electrical outlets, telephone jacks, any posts, doors, steps, etcetera. After you have a good drawing, with everything marked. Make a couple photocopies of it. One will be for your work layout, as you'll see in a minute, the other will be the the "blueprint".
Place the items you've drawn above on the drawing of the room, and move them around to fit.
I learned a long time ago that kitchen designers go by a triangle rule,
the corners of which are made up of the refrigerator, sink and stove.
This is the "work triangle" of the kitchen, something like 80% of the activities
in a kitchen happen within that triangle, so you want to make it as small as possible,
to reduce steps. Well, in the darkroom, the triangle is still there, it's made up of
the enlarger and each end of the sink. Almost all of your time in the darkroom will be spent
in this triangle area, so you want the distances within that area minimized.
Record everything on this drawing; where there will be electrical outlets, radio, telephone,
lights, safelights, anything and everything you can think of.
For more information of this nature, see the DarkroomSource
Darkroom Links
Grid Paper
Engineering or drafting paper, it has squares rather than lines Back to Desiging a Permanent Darkroom, or a Temporary Darkroom, or Drawing Items.Visitor Comments
The comments stated below are not necessarily the opinions of Andy Hughes or DarkroomSourceWhen running a gfci try to find a way to put in a safe light that won't be triped by the gfci. This way if the worst happens and your gfci trips you won't be in total darkness trying to figgure out what happened. Of course to use this you want the safelight someplace where it won't get wet.Contributed by on 1999-01-15 00:00:00
A few years ago I renovated my laundry and built in a darkroom at the same time. I did all of the work myself, which included lining the walls and ceiling, plumbing, electrical, benches etc. It ost me $$$$, so much that I realised that it'd have been cheaper to do printing workshops and hire their facilities.Contributed by on 2000-08-01 00:00:00
Then I moved house. I was thinking of building a quick-and-dirty darkroom in the garage, but I have found a better answer: Photoshop. I develop the b+w negs myself, then do the "enlarging" in Photoshop. The control that you have over dodging and burning and contrast is awesome! print it out on my colour inkjet and it's a beauty.
Yes I know that the inkjet prints are crappy compared to real prints. My next mission, should I choose to take it, is to move to high-res scans, edit digitally then output back to film from whence prints can easily be made, and all the work has already been done.
This process (that of photographing finished prints) is not at all new, it has been practiced by many photographers as a way of easily reproducing difficult negatives.
I am a young photographer, 16 yrs, and have the problem of finding darkroom space that my parents will be ok with. Our garage is already occupied with miscellanious junk and the laundry and bathroom are to small. But we do have an empty shed in our garden which I'm allowed to convert. The main problems I have encountered is the electricity and the amount of dust, cobwebs, holes, spiders, and such, that are in there. It's helpful to have a good look around hardware stores to find out what solves these problems in non-darkroom situations.Anonymously contributed on 2000-11-26 00:00:00
i am a young photographer. younger than 16. i am currently 14... i would like to make a suggestion as to how to make a perminent dark room you can take with you if you move. hauler trailers! the long ones use for hay rides. you can build it with ply-wood and 2x4s on top of the trailer. tou can hook it to elestric with an out door extension cord and water with a hose. if the trailer is long enough, you can even have a small 'porch' on the front!Contributed by on 2001-02-07 00:00:00
If you don't want to do the whole plumbing thing, here's what I did. Under my darkroom sink I put a large Home Depot bucket (its about 5 gals). Then place a small submersible 'fish pond' pump in the bucket with a length - mine's 10' - of 1/2" clear hose to your utility sink. When the bucket gets near full, start the pump and let it drain. Saves my back.Contributed by on 2002-04-09 00:00:00
2 years ago I built a dark room in my basement. I used an old sink and for water I used a large water jug (5 gals) and put it on the counter beside the sink. Under the sink I duct taped old Vacuum hoses together and ran them into a large dain in the floor.Contributed by on 2002-07-02 00:00:00
I just want to say to all the young photograpers out there that make sure you have everything you need in your darkroom before you develop a picture because everything matters in your home darkroom. Make sure you have everything you need before you develop a picture.Contributed by on 2002-08-15 00:00:00
I just built a darkroom in the house that I am currently living in. After working in a friend's darkroom for the past couple of years, I know the processes pretty well. I am a student and my school recently got rid of their darkroom (shudder) because of code violations and costs. Refusing to go totally digital, or relying on commercial labs, I've built a darkroom in an old laundry room in my house. It is very temporary since my lease ends in a few months, but with only about a half of day of work, I had a lighttight room with water and electricity. The electricity was already there, in the form of a wall socket. I built a simple sink out of a 1' by 3' piece of scrap plywood, cheap wooden yardsticks for basin walls, brads and caulk. This drains off of one of it's corners via a funnel and a hose to the laundry drain. Garden hoses and a couple of valves connect to the water supply and are duct taped to the wall. A Y connecter mixes the water. This actually will mix water fine at a constant temperature. I made the room light tight with more duct tape garbage bags, and a lot of old pizza boxes (not hard to come by in college). A large mat of this covering went over the existing opening to the room. I created a simple door the same way. The entire room was about $20 using scraps of wood and cardboard. All other costs were on things like chemicals and equipment (thermometer, tank, light) but which I can take with me when I move. I would consider this room temporary/permanent. It can be easily torn down in an hour. The cardboard can be trashed, the hose can be reused, as well as the 'sink'. This type of room would be good for anyone not staying in one place for long and on a very low budget.Contributed by on 2004-02-15 00:53:33
Hello it is 2007 and i am making a dark room! enlargers are cheep,4x5 camiras cheep, papper cheeper, d76 free what more can i ask foor ? kodack to mak papper?Contributed by on 2007-04-27 15:47:42
