Iodine as an emulsion remover??

[Bighead]

My instructor informed me that iodine would work to remove emulsion on a print (or neg) acting as a good bleachng agent... I want to write or paint on the "agent" to spell a word on a finished print...

One of my friends tried it on glossy fiber and nothing happened.. Left it on overnight, without washing....

Does the stuff work? What would work for this.. I assume, use it, leave until desired effect takes place then re-wash and dry?? I use FB papers.

 

[George Papantoniou]

I've used an iodine solution called "Lugol" (bought it this way from a pharmacy in Begium) that would remove the silver from the emulsion. I applied it, a few seconds after the paper would turn yellow and a few minutes after I could wash, fix and rewash the paper to remove the yellow stain. What remained was white. Used it on glossy FB quite successfuly.
After a quick search on the net, I found that Lugol consists of 5g iodine, 10g potassium iodide in 100ml of water. It's a disinfectant solution.
Household bleach (chlorine bleach) will remove ALL the emulsion from the paper, leaving it bald (you'll be able to see the actual fiber base we talk so much about). Chlorine is radical (and dangerous to use) for if you get some of it apilled on a part of the print you don't want it, it'll be too late for tears... Use it cautiously.
Otherwise, you can use one of the known photographic bleach solutions.
Here are a couple of images I artificially "aged" using a dilute solution of household chlorine bleach. I sprayed the bleach, then stopped the process by spraying water.

 

[Ole]

Iodine will bleach the silver forming silver iodide, which unfortunately is difficult to fix out.

It will also sublimate from the solution, forming a nasty yellow fug around the tray, print or whatever. This can also be removed with thiosulfate, BTW...

Farmer's reducer is a lot easier to work with, and has fewer nasty side effects.

 

[Bighead]

Farmer's reducer is a lot easier to work with, and has fewer nasty side effects.

It seems that this farmer reducer is meant to remove layers of overexposure on negatives and prints... Should I mix a stronger solution since I want to bring it sown to near perfect white??

 

[AllanD]

I have used the equivalent of "Lugol" on RC prints to take an area back to base white. In the UK, it is available from agriculural suppliers in various solution strengths. To avoid a yellow stain, fix immediately. This bleach is very fast acting !

A strong Farmer's solution will tend to leave a yellow stain