Grandmaster G has a suggestion

Bob Carnie · Mar 12, 2009

The esteemed Mr Zuili has suggested to me an interesting workflow for my solarizations and I want to pass it along and see what you think.

I use a two dev solaral type dev with a very heavy potassium bromide hit in the second dev which is the one that gets flashed with light.
Apparently this allows the solarized portion of the image to have a different grain structure which when toned creates a nice split with multiple toners.
To date I have been very happy with this.

But now the mad scientist wants me to bleach the print before toning and then redevelop in lith chemistry after the solarization.. is he mad, is he full of crap , I am not sure yet.

What I am worried about is the potential for image not being as stable for long term by bleach then developing in lith after the solarization stage, rather than adding the sodium sulphide as normal?
Also can I then tone after this second bleach lith development stage?

Is he mad? has the hot CA sun baked his brain?? We Canadians see very little bright sun so we are not affected by this lunacy.

what do others think of this

pgomena · Mar 12, 2009

I suppose you could try it and find out. Sounds interesting. Beware, the mad scientist may get you hooked on his warped and twisted process!

Peter Gomena

Mike Wilde · Mar 12, 2009

My take on it is this: All bleaching does is to re-cycle the previopusly reduced elemental silver back to the salt, which can then be redeveloped back to an elemental state by a developer with a different reduction characteristic, in your case, a lith developer.

After the post bleach developement step, stop, fix, and wash, or optionally tone as you see fit. I can't see how things would go wrong- just process as you would without the bleach step

You do need to wash some bleaches to clear them, and some with a post bleach clearing bath, but I am pretty sure you are up on how the different bleaches work. There is the possibility that any residual bleach could cause a toner to act differently.

Thomas Bertilsson · Mar 12, 2009

See, it takes Canadians to make sense of the crazy Californians...

I have no idea, Bob, but it sure sounds interesting and possibly more work than I'd like to try on one single print. I would LOVE to see the results.

G stands for Glitter, by the way.

Thomas Bertilsson · Mar 12, 2009

I should add that most of Guillaume's ideas seem to work out. Only a person with great imagination comes up with using Slavich Grade 4 at 16x20 and larger from 35mm Delta 3200 pinhole images.

I really really really am impressed with how somebody can just step out of the realm of normal and produce work like that. Mind boggling.

So I always listen when Guillaume speaks. There is always substance somewhere, and always something worth thinking about, simple truths.

How about trying small prints and see how it turns out?

I can almost visualize how the print would look. To me, in a print, density is density, you bleach it and re-develop it. Whether it's solarized or not shouldn't matter, no different than bleaching a normal print and re-developing it.
I've been interested in bleaching back lith prints and re-developing them in Dektol lately. To get rid of some of the color cast, while retaining the gritty look I'm after. And then tone it for more pure toning colors.

Good luck, and I'm intrigued with the formula for printing.

- Thomas

Mark Layne · Mar 12, 2009

Bob Carnie said:
The esteemed Mr Zuili has suggested to me an interesting workflow for my solarizations and I want to pass it along and see what you think.

I use a two dev solaral type dev with a very heavy potassium bromide hit in the second dev which is the one that gets flashed with light.
Apparently this allows the solarized portion of the image to have a different grain structure which when toned creates a nice split with multiple toners.
To date I have been very happy with this.

But now the mad scientist wants me to bleach the print before toning and then redevelop in lith chemistry after the solarization.. is he mad, is he full of crap , I am not sure yet.

What I am worried about is the potential for image not being as stable for long term by bleach then developing in lith after the solarization stage, rather than adding the sodium sulphide as normal?
Also can I then tone after this second bleach lith development stage?

Is he mad? has the hot CA sun baked his brain?? We Canadians see very little bright sun so we are not affected by this lunacy.

what do others think of this

Bob
The MGWT you use a lot gives very interesting blue pink splits if bleached with a CuSO4 bleach and redeveloped in dilute lith. I have no idea how it works with solarization. Based on a tip from Wolfgang I found that a very short tone in very dilute polysulfide gave a sulphurous ochre look to a print thus processed. Toners will give strange effects after lith redevelopment
Mark

Bob Carnie · Mar 13, 2009

Mark
what is a CuSo4 bleach? never heard of this one but sounds interesting.

Mark Layne said:
Bob
The MGWT you use a lot gives very interesting blue pink splits if bleached with a CuSO4 bleach and redeveloped in dilute lith. I have no idea how it works with solarization. Based on a tip from Wolfgang I found that a very short tone in very dilute polysulfide gave a sulphurous ochre look to a print thus processed. Toners will give strange effects after lith redevelopment
Mark

removed account4 · Mar 13, 2009

makes perfect sense to me!

TheFlyingCamera · Mar 13, 2009

CuSo4 is copper sulfate.

Grandmaster G has a suggestion

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