Fixing salt prints with Hypo

I am struggling a little with getting the desired result from salt printing. I figured that I am doing something wrong while fixing the print.

I expose my salted paper for roughly an hour in indirect sunlight. Before taking it out from the frame I make sure the image is about a stop overexposed, to compensate for the loss of shadow details during washing and fixing.

I prepare the fixer using the recipe given here (https://www.alternativephotography.com/a-dash-of-salt/). Fifty grams of sodium thiosulphate in 500ml tap water (though I must mention that I skip the sodium bicarbonate).

The print looks sharp and slightly overexposed when I wash it but as soon as I pour the fixer the image fades drastically. I understand that this is to be expected. After washing the print in "hypo clear" (10% sodium sulfite) and tap water I expect the print to look slightly faded than how it came out of the printing frame. However the print regains about 60-70% of its intensity. The image looks blurry because the tonal transitions are all gone.

I understand that the fixer bleaches the print which causes it to lose some of its intensity. However I am not sure about how much of the 10% Hypo solution should one use for an 8x10 print ? I pour the entire 500 ml fixer in the tray, could this be causing the print to fade drastically ? If yes what should be the correct quantity of fixer for an 8x10 print ?

I make the fixer every time I make a print. Can the hypo and "hypo clear" solutions be reused ?

Thanks,

Utsav

You need to wash the print first for 15 minutes in running water. Then you need to tone it
You didn't mention toning..then fix for only one minute...I'm using fumed silica as an undercoat to improve contrast

I’ve also seen recommendations for 2% sodium thiosulfate fixer.

Thanks for your input, guys.

Could the paper be an issue ? I am using a cheap 300 GSM water color paper. Not the 100% cotton type.

Any particular reason you are skipping the addition of bicarbonate?

If you refer to the Wynn White article, it specifically mentions the role the carbonate plays in the fixing step.

:Niranjan.

A few thoughts/guesses, without seeing what the prints look like before fixing, it's hard to guess.

The color changes ( from lavender or purple to brown ) in the fixer, and this can change your perception of contrast or depth. Are your white highlights still bright white? If the highlights start to get tone it can dramatically reduce the apparent contrast.

There is not very much silver chloride on the surface of a salt print... it really does not need strong fixer. I use about a teaspoon or 1.5 teaspoons of hypo in 60-100ml of water for about 3 or 4 minutes ( that's much less than a 10% solution ). ( When I'm being careful on a print meant to be a final version, I fix 2m, then 2m again with fresh solution ) I usually do add a pinch of sodium carbonate to the water before mixing the hypo, but I've done it many times with and without alkali and I have never seen much difference in "bleaching". I have seen some bleaching start to appear when I fix for more than about 4 minutes.

Here is a suggestion:

Expose your salt print in indirect sunlight until you just see some tone starting to show in the brightest highlights. Then hold it in full direct sunlight ( point it right at the sun! ) for 1.5 to 2 minutes ... this "locks in" the darks and gives "depth of printing" which will make the print easier to tone if you use toner and should make the darks hold up better in the fixer.

If the darks are not dark enough when the highlights start to show tone, it will be difficult to make a good print. If this is happening, try taping a piece of plain white paper over the glass of your printing frame ( this is called a "diffuser" ). With the diffuser in place, try exposing to indirect sunlight for a couple of hours first: you want to see only the darks and they should reach about 40 or 50% of where you want them to be... then do the rest of your exposure as usual. The diffuser gives the darks a head start so that they are partly printed in before you go ahead with your normal exposure. In this way it is possible to print different negatives that have different "contrast" ( really, density range of the negative ).

A lot depends on the negative!

Good luck and have fun!

NedL said:

There is not very much silver chloride on the surface of a salt print... it really does not need strong fixer.

Click to expand...

While technically correct, the problem with salted paper and several other processes is that quite a lot of the silver ends up deeply embedded into the paper, depending on the paper used and the way it's coated. To get this out, prolonged fixing is necessary. Your 4 minutes sounds on the short side to me; do you mask the borders of your prints and verify that they don't fog?

@utsavgupta you've received useful advice I think, and to give more specific recommendations it would help to describe your process and materials in more detail, and show photos of the problematic prints.
I'd particularly want to reiterate the importance of the initial wash after exposure; wash the print with slightly acidified water (add a pinch of citric acid to tap water) until the wash water is entirely clear and no longer milky. In my case this usually requires two changes of water over the course of about 5 minutes with constant agitation. Then fix in a fairly dilute and (close to) pH neutral fixer. I prefer rapid fixer because with plain hypo fixer it's really difficult to obtain a clean print in my experience.
Be sure to mask the borders of your prints with e.g. rubylith (or any kind of UV opaque material) so you can actually see if your processing generates clean whites. I find that not doing this makes nearly always hides underlying problems that will reduce the lifetime of the print.