Foothill Bridge Path

So nice. Wonderful scene and the the process to make is most interesting to me. I have four books on alternative processes and have yet to take the plunge. Gold on salt has a wonderful tone here. The pinhole image is just amazing.

Some fine work there -- scene, camera, and chemical magic!

Wow... the split tone effect was real, but somewhat exaggerated by my copy photo. But after it dried overnight the entire print is much more neutral. Now the split effect is quite subtle. I've never seen a salt print change color this much after drying, although there usually is some "drydown" increased darks. I used a new kind of gelatin, which might explain it.

Ned, thanks for sharing the details of the print. I am curious, and your reward is the opportunity to answer more questions about it! About that gelatin - for sizing the paper i saw a video on utube for ziatype where the instructor used knox gelatin from the grocers. PE has spoken of gelatins made expressly for emulsions. I have the name somewhere, and there are apparently grades. SO two questions - which gelatins did you use before and in this, and are you preferring the previous material? I am on the cusp of trying ziatype - my major motivation for getting into 8x10 format was to contact print and ALT.

I'll probably make a post about this in the alternative processes forum in the next couple weeks. I made the mistake of changing two things at once: I used a new kind of gelatin and I also added a tiny amount of sodium citrate ( only about 0.3% ). I'm pretty sure most of the differences I noticed were due to the gelatin, but I'm going to do a few tests before I post about it. But to answer your question: until now I've been using 250 bloom photo grade deionized ossein gelatin from Bostic and Sullivan. This time I used "superclear" gelatin made by Custom Collagen, which is a pig skin gelatin. The photo grade ossein gelatin was easy to use and never caused me any trouble. I like to use it anywhere from 0.2% up to about 1.2%, depending on the paper and on the "look" I want ( it changes the color in the final print ). This time, I had great difficulty with micro-bubbles when salting the paper, and then after it was dry it was very difficult to coat with the silver nitrate solution. When brushing on the sliver nitrate, the gelatin absorbed more liquid than I'm used to, while at the same time making the surface slightly repellent, making it hard to coat evenly. It also foamed a little, and the paper fogged just a little when the silver hit it. Also my brush got "sticky", so I know gelatin was coming off the surface while I was coating the silver; that never happened before with ossein gelatin. I doubt I'll be using the pig skin gelatin any more ( assuming, again, that it wasn't my addition of sodium citrate, but I doubt that since other salt printers use it ). I've never tried knox gelatin, but I know Chrisopher James likes it. Probably more than you wanted to know, but you touched a subject that I've been thinking about a lot the past few days! I'm going to run a little test with different amounts of pig gelatin, with and without sodium citrate, and make these observations more concrete.

Absolutely not true more than i wanted to know. I will be looking out for your post, it will be a classic enduring post i am sure. Will go back to the James book also. I think he updated an edition as well with more ziatype info. The video i saw was the sizing in salt water before applying the light sensitive emulsion. She did the knox. Her work seems very nice, but it sounds like moving on to the 250 bloom is the most recommended and seems best result. I think the ztype kit is at B&S so i should be able to get all supplies for what i want to do all in one order. Many thanks Ned for this great information.

Good luck with it and have fun!