Ferri while fixing without running water?

[matti]

Today I finally brought out some prints destined for bleaching. From small enhancements of the eyes to totally change the tonality of the picture. My doughter and I went crazy over the bath tub with different ways of having fun with ferri while her younger brother had his afternoon nap.

I posted two examples of what we did in the gallery:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Anyway Potassium Ferricyanide seems to be really handy. But it is not that convenient to do the whole fixing, washing and drying stage afterwards.

I read somewhare, probably in one of Tim Rudmans books, that it could be used at the fixer stage in the darkroom. I don't have any running water in the darkroom, so I don't have running water there to wash the bleach away. Can I use it anyway or would a couple of drops contaminate the fixer so other prints will be bleached by it?

/matti

 

[Photo Engineer]

You can bleach with ferri and fix at the same time, but the combination is very unstable and will go bad in a few minutes. Also, action of the ferri seems to be speeded up to me when I worked with it. You may have to experiment with concentration.

PE

 

[matti]

I think I was a bit tired when I wrote my first post.

What I mean is:

Can I:
- Lift the print out of the fixing tray.
- Wipe it a bit with a paper towel.
- Apply ferri in small ammounts on local parts of the print.
- Put it back in the fixer.
- Redo the steps until I am happy.

That would save a lot of time compared to bleaching after washing. But I am concerned about contaminating the fixer with the small ammounts of ferri. And that this would bleach the prints I will fix afterwards.

/matti

 

[Photo Engineer]

Yes, it will with your sequence shown.

PE

 

[matti]

Thanks PE. I suppose I need to get one more tray for a water bath wash then. So much fun chemicals to use and so little desk space for trays...
/matti

 

[Photo Engineer]

Matti, I'm in the same position right now. My process is now on a counter top because I'm using the sink to make emulsions. The couter top is being chewed on by all of the chemicals it was not intended to take.

And, I have a lot of developers to test sometimes, so the counter top fills rapidly with trays.

Best of luck to you.

PE

 

[KenM]

I know that with Forte paper (sigh) you must rinse the print with water rise, squeegee, and then apply bleach. If you don't rinse the fix off the surface, it will bleach much too fast, making it very hard to control.

Rinsing with water will also help diffuse the edge of the area you're bleaching, helping prevent a hard bleach line.

 

[Marco Buonocore]

I've just started playing with ferri myself - the results can be magic, on rare occaisions.

Question, however: If the combination of ferri and fixer is unstable, how will it end up contaminating the fixer bath? Wouldn't it lose it's ability to bleach after a few minutes, when mixed with fix?

I would have thought that using it after the first fix bath would make sense, as you could still keep a fairly 'clean' second bath.

I'm no chemist (grade 10 was the furthest I got. 'C' average, thanks very much!), but it was just a thought.

Good luck,

 

[ann]

mix some 10% ferri (about 10 drops) with about 5 ml of weak fixer and use that for bleaching then put the print back into your normal fixer.

Depending on how many prints your bleaching you will have to refresh your bleach, or just mix another batch.
running water is helpful for control issue especially when bleaching locally.

 

[matti]

Thanks all. It seems too god not to try. I will have an ordinary tray with water and some way to scoop some water over the print to stop bleaching instead of using the fixer itself for this. Then I will refix.
/matti