If you research "silver patina," you will find some very innovative ways of tarnishing (we call it toning) silver engaged by jewellery makers. I don't see why something won't happen to a salt print when exposed to some hard-boiled eggs. Practicality is an another matter. You can try the next time you make an egg-salad...I wonder if H2S by itself could be used... like "fuming" salt prints with ammonia or fuming film with H2O2, maybe we can "egg fume" a print?
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1440677
Definitely not! Even if I make a "extra hard boiled egg" fumer, it will be out in the garage. I don't like to mess around with H2S at all...... If you are suggesting use of bare H2S gas, synthesized somehow in-situ and exposing the print, I would be careful as it is toxic if over-exposed to - not something I would like to play around with....
truest words ever spokenIs this different to the pink Himalayan salt? Other than colour!!
Steve.
A reason I'm interested in this is that in the paper positive process we've been using, the bleach converts metallic silver to something ( probably some kind of silver citrate complex ) and leaves the undeveloped silver bromide alone. If you re-expose the paper to light and re-develop in normal print developer, the "silver citrate" areas do develop, but they are slower than the silver bromide areas. This is good and bad: the re-exposure gives additional control over the result, but it's also another "moving part" and one that's tricky ( you have to judge the right amount having only seen what the negative looks like! ) However, if you do not re-expose to light, thiourea will "develop" the unexposed silver bromide, and it leaves the "silver citrate" completely alone... so the reversal is more perfect, and it is controlled completely by the original exposure and the 1st development, making it much simpler to home in on what works well. I'm going to try kala namak, but I'd like to see it make a darker tone on an unexposed piece of photopaper before I do...
very interesting; I'm gonna try a 2% solution if I can find the black salt.(or this one weird trick....)
I didn't know where best to post this. But since I fell into this “discovery” (didn't find any instances in literature, do point out otherwise) while working on my salt print process, this forum might be as good as any. It seems that the Himalayan Black (or Pink) Salt (you would know it if you know South Asian cuisine well as I do) can act as a pretty good (?) toner for silver prints.
Recently I decided to experiment with Polysulfide (Kodak Brown Toner or T-8 type) toning to see for myself if anything good happens with salt prints. Both selenium and sulfide toning are not as popular with salt printers as various gold/platinum/palladium based toners, due to their propensity to severely bleach the images. In any case, I acquired some liver of sulfur for that purpose and soon as I opened the bottle, the smell reminded me (among other things) of the black salt. For those who don't know, Black salt or Kala Namak (literal translation in Hindi)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kala_namak)
is a natural salt mined along the Himalayas. It contains loads of minerals as well as many sulfurous compounds including sulfides, sulfites etc. Turns out I had a some in my spice cabinet so I thought let's see what would happen if I make a solution and tested it for toning.
I took a few test strips of salt print (ironically, salt-free salt print - details of which I will present in another thread at some point) all fixed and washed and dunked them in various concentrations of black salt 0.2% to 5% in plain water (no other additives) for 10 minutes each.
Attached files summarize the results. Each strip contained two zones for 40 minutes and 5 minutes each of UV box exposure – signifying 3 stops of difference. Toning (which I define as increase in density and/or change in color towards more neutral) was achieved to varying degree accompanied by bleaching (loss of density) as well, particularly in the lighter step. As the black salt concentration went up, the tone changed towards more neutral from the reddish brown/yellow hues of the control un-toned sample. That was evident even at lowest 0.2% concentration. The darker 40 minutes step intensified in all cases except the 5% one. In the lighter zoneS, there was bleaching at all concentrations, worst being at the highest. In essence, if one considers the delta between the 40 min and 5 min exposureS (Column 4 in the spread sheet) as some sort of contrast measure, it improves with toner concentration, a fact that can be used in one's favor if using lower contrast negatives.
Conclusion:
I might have stumbled upon yet another way to tone the salted prints using the Himalayan black salt. Granted this is not a very well defined as a chemical and the efficacy will vary depending on where it comes from, but it is very cheap and edible to the boot. Nowadays it is available practically everywhere - even Walmart sells it. It does give off smell but in a well ventilated area, there should be no problem.
More optimizing needs to be done. The 0.2-1% toner concentration look the most promising in terms of maximizing the color shift with modest Dmax boost and least bleaching at lower density. More time dependent experiments will help. Perhaps addition of an alkali like sodium carbonate may influence the bleaching behavior as well.
Much to do....
Feel free to try out yourselves!
:Niranjan.
Try a South Asian grocery store if nearby or even a natural/health food store. Amazon has many brands available as well.very interesting; I'm gonna try a 2% solution if I can find the black salt.
Yes, I found it in both.Seems to be easier than finding the poorly defined polysulphide.Try a South Asian grocery store if nearby or even a natural/health food store. Amazon has many brands available as well.
Great...please share your experience.Yes, I found it in both.Seems to be easier than finding the poorly defined polysulphide.
I have secured 200g from the local Asian food store(powder only) and will try to use it at 2% soon.Great...please share your experience.
should be interesting....I intend to mix it as a 2% solution and use it just like a working solution of Agfa Viradon;will report after first results.
I intend to mix it as a 2% solution and use it just like a working solution of Agfa Viradon;will report after first results.
Aha, I see. Missed that thread. I guess if Ralph had reported here as he said he would do, I would have known.
I can't remember if I already wrote this, but in my limited experiments with black salt as a re-developer, I found 0.5% worked best too. Have you tried changing the concentration of the Na2CO3 bath?
Not necessarily relevant to toning, but I just took two strips of unexposed photopaper, soaked one in 2% Na2CO3 and the other in 8% Na2CO3 for 5 minutes, and then put them both into 0.5% black salt. They both toned to an even tan color and I can't see any difference.
II did and it worked great as a direct sulphide toner; at 4-8 min,I got a nice warming of the highlights without noticable after-toning in the final wash.Hi, Ralph:
Wonder if you had any luck toning silver gelatin with black salt.
:Niranjan.
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