Bleaching RC Paper?

I've not tried ferricyanide bleaching yet, but have read much about it's possible uses for lightening areas of a print. Everything I've read about it was written by photographers who use fiber base paper. Does bleaching work well on RC paper? Has anyone had experience with this that they can share? I'm currently using RC paper (Ilford Pearl surface), and would like to avoid a general discussion of fiber vs. RC.

Thanks,
Dale

It works exactly the same. As the base does not absorb the bleach, it can be washed away very quickly, allowing accurate application.

If you have the RC print in different processing solutions for a long time, you might see some "dark corners" or edges when the liquids penetrate too much. Usually, these marks disappears upon drying the print. If a permanent mark is left, you can try to optimize the process time, e.g. no HCA, no collecting prints in a water bath for further processing, but one straight go through everything, maybe also shorter washes.

Thanks for your reply. I did have a concern about having the RC prints in solutions too long, since bleaching is supposed to be an iterative process (bleach in small increments, putting the print back into the fixer after each bleaching step). I already keep my immersion times low (30 sec. fix, 2 minute wash), so hopefully the added bleach/fix cycles won't damage the print.

Dale

i use rc paper a lot, and then bleaching - and have done for for 2+ minutes for particularly dense prints - very rarely a problem. if you want to read/see what some photographers do with ferricyanide check out gene smith's work among others, view some you tube video's - heavy selective bleaching!

re fiber vs.rc... i've found i print a lot more, and on rc - just quicker. some of my work looks better on rc, some looks better on fiber. i reach for the rc first.

p.s. i'm a journeyman photographer who likes the process and enjoys what i produce.. you won't find my prints in a major museum! enjoy.

Modern RC papers are pretty robust - I've done things much worse than repeated bleach&fix without causing any damage. One thing you should be concerned about is uneven bleaching. This happens if your bleach is too string/fast and you have to yank out the paper too quickly. In my experience this doesn't happen the same way with every paper - be prepared to test. This is one of the reasons why I tend to keep my test prints - I can use them again for bleach/toning experiments without losing good prints.