Kallitype: Your Wisdom

[Franswa]

Hello good People. I’m about to begin my exploration into kallitype printing and would like to ask you for one single piece of advice that you found to be critical in helping you learn this process. What’s that one nugget of wisdom you wish you’d known known that you hadn’t previously?

 

[gbroadbridge]

Hello good People. I’m about to begin my exploration into kallitype printing and would like to ask you for one single piece of advice that you found to be critical in helping you learn this process. What’s that one nugget of wisdom you wish you’d known known that you hadn’t previously?

It's going to take a lot longer and cost more in materials than you ever expected, before you get to a reasonable print.

 

[retina_restoration]

Hello good People. I’m about to begin my exploration into kallitype printing and would like to ask you for one single piece of advice that you found to be critical in helping you learn this process. What’s that one nugget of wisdom you wish you’d known known that you hadn’t previously?

The best nugget of wisdom I can offer you is this: buy the Kallitype book by Don Nelson. There will be no unanswered questions if you follow this bit of advice.

 

[awty]

When I proposed to start Kallitypes along time ago, I was advised to start with VDB's, that I did and never progressed any further. VDB is easier and more affordable and so far I haven't seen anything in Kallitype or for that matter P/P to make me want to try either.

 

[revdoc]

I second VDB as the preferred path, if it's feasible. Kallitype is more flexible in terms of contrast, which makes it a better choice for film negs. With digital negs, VDB is the way to go.

My single nugget of kallitype advice: stick with sodium citrate developer. Clearing will be you biggest problem, and citrate developers are your best. option on that front.

 

[koraks]

Don't try to fix in the print what the negative lacks. Put differently: make the negative fit for the printing process.

 

[Tel]

Some years back I did a Kallitype workshop with Lisa Elmaleh at Penumbra in New York. She made it seem very do-able and it was: I bought the chemicals from Artcraft and made myself a UV lightbox and printed a bunch of things with satisfactory results. But the process literally left its mark--a group of black stains on my bathtub, directly beneath the spot where I hung my prints to dry, that have resisted all attempts to remove them. Anyone know the solution?

 

[nmp]

Some years back I did a Kallitype workshop with Lisa Elmaleh at Penumbra in New York. She made it seem very do-able and it was: I bought the chemicals from Artcraft and made myself a UV lightbox and printed a bunch of things with satisfactory results. But the process literally left its mark--a group of black stains on my bathtub, directly beneath the spot where I hung my prints to dry, that have resisted all attempts to remove them. Anyone know the solution?

Assuming it is silver stains, probably Farmer's reducer which is a mixture of pot ferri and thiosulfate.

:Niranjan.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Make sure your negative has appropriate density range. Use a paper with no alkaline buffers, like Hahnemuhle, or Revere (otherwise, you'll have to acidify it in an acid solution), and your tap water is not overly alkaline, for the first rinse. For image stability, consider gold or selenium toning.

 

[retina_restoration]

As Andy has pointed out, it is critically important to engineer a negative of the correct density/contrast to work well with Kallitype. You can either make a digital negative (you have to work with Epson printer tech for this) or work out a process to create an in-camera negative, which requires special processing. (For this I recommend Ellie Young's pdf, which goes into considerable detail about achieving the correct negative density) Your best option for in-camera alt process negatives is FP4+, which is ideally suited to making Kallitype (and Salt) negs because of its low base + fog density. Ellie explains the choice of FP4+ in the pdf, so do yourself a favor and take a look at it.

Andy's recommendation to stick to an appropriate paper is also excellent advice. To his list of Revere and Hahnemuhle I would add Bergger's COT 320 paper, which has been my favorite for Salted paper and Kallitype printmaking.

Tone your prints before fixing. Gold chloride toning is considered the best for archival and aesthetic purposes. You can buy a gram of Gold chloride for about half what it would cost you to buy gold toner pre-made: go to ArtCraft Chemicals. The Thiocyanate toner version of Gold toner is simplest and very easy to make yourself.

 

[Tel]

Assuming it is silver stains, probably Farmer's reducer which is a mixture of pot ferri and thiosulfate.

:Niranjan.

Thanks!

 

[Tom Taylor]

Learning to determine the proper exposure to be given for a particular negative is the most difficult skill to learn in kalltype printing. I print using the sun as the UV source and a very short time in exposure difference can make or break the print. As for as in-camera negatives are concerned I print kallitypes mostly with Ilford Delta 100 which maxes out at the appropriate density but I have also printed using Fuji Acros which has a much higher density range so using Acros requires you to pay close attention when developing it so that you get an acceptable density result.

 

[BHuij]

Don't waste time with less expensive but unproven papers. Just start with Hahnemühle Platinum Rag, Arches Platine, or Bergger COT 320. You'll have plenty of troubleshooting steps to go through without wondering if your paper is just not suitable

 

[retina_restoration]

Don't waste time with less expensive but unproven papers. Just start with Hahnemühle Platinum Rag, Arches Platine, or Bergger COT 320. You'll have plenty of troubleshooting steps to go through without wondering if your paper is just not suitable

Yup.

 

[gbroadbridge]

You can either make a digital negative (you have to work with Epson printer tech for this)

I use a Canon pigment printer ((Pro10s) which works fine with an appropriate driver (not the Canon driver).

 

[retina_restoration]

I use a Canon pigment printer ((Pro10s) which works fine with an appropriate driver (not the Canon driver).

Please tell us more — I was never able to get sufficient density of pigment from my Canon proGraf pro printer.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Please tell us more — I was never able to get sufficient density of pigment from my Canon proGraf pro printer.

That was the problem I had too despite using several different films - eventually I used GoldUp USA silk screen film.

I found a 3rd party RIP driver which provided more density than I needed, the PrintFab driver from a German company - they provided excellent tech support with some manual tweaks to increase density. It's not free, but neither is Alt process printing There's a 30 day trial. If you try it I'll send the tweak info.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

Don't waste time with less expensive but unproven papers. Just start with Hahnemühle Platinum Rag, Arches Platine, or Bergger COT 320. You'll have plenty of troubleshooting steps to go through without wondering if your paper is just not suitable

The book, “Kallitype, Vandyke Brown, and Argyrotype”, by Don Nelson has a long list of tested papers and results of the test. Worth taking a look if one is wondering about the paper choice.

Many have had good experience with buffered papers after treating them with acid like Sulphamic Acid, Oxalic Acid or Citric Acid. In my own experience, economical watercolour papers like Canson Montval 300 gsm CP and Brustro 25% cotton 300 gsm HP work fine. So does the more expensive Lana Lanaquarelle 300 gsm HP.

 

[gbroadbridge]

The book, “Kallitype, Vandyke Brown, and Argyrotype”, by Don Nelson has a long list of tested papers and results of the test. Worth taking a look if one is wondering about the paper choice.

Many have had good experience with buffered papers after treating them with acid like Sulphamic Acid, Oxalic Acid or Citric Acid. In my own experience, economical watercolour papers like Canson Montval 300 gsm CP and Brustro 25% cotton 300 gsm HP work fine. So does the more expensive Lana Lanaquarelle 300 gsm HP.

I think that the point is, that when first starting out, using a paper like one of the ones @BHuij mentioned, removes one variable from the process.
It is tricky enough getting decent results even if all the other planets and the moons align - without introducing a paper that needs chemical preprocessing with its own set of variables.

 

[retina_restoration]

I think that the point is, that when first starting out, using a paper like one of the ones @BHuij mentioned, removes one variable from the process.
It is tricky enough getting decent results even if all the other planets and the moons align - without introducing a paper that needs chemical preprocessing with its own set of variables.

Agreed. Revere is quite affordable (compared to many others) and works well.