Puzzled by Paper

Colin Graham said:

...
BTW Loris, the masa is interesting stuff! Thanks again for the recommendation. It's sort of odd not having to do a lot of prep to get a paper to work, I could get used to that.

Click to expand...

You're welcome. I'm sure you'll like it - after sorting out all the working parameters...

Regards,
Loris.

pschwart said:

I find that no papers clear completely in citric acid, even those that have not had an acid soak. BFK clears completely in HCA, Permawash, or EDTA+sodium sulfite, but I recall it takes a little longer than untreated papers.

Click to expand...

Did you use or have you tried citric acid as a paper treatment?

What you say is pretty much in line with what I saw with this paper- untreated and oxalic treated paper were very very difficult to clear in citric acid, even with 3 fresh baths.

But what I found interesting and the point of my post was that the citric acid pretreatment made the paper very easy to clear, in fact the paper cleared in a sodium citrate developer, before the clearing bath.

My main paper is arches, which I've always used with citric acid prebath. I've never had a problem clearing this paper with citric acid clearing baths, which again makes me wonder about the compatibility of acid treatments with developers and clearing baths. Has anyone done any research or testing on this?

I haven't done any research on this. However, I have found in my short experience using Sodium Citrate as a developer for Kallitypes I have never had a problem clearing my prints pretty much regardless of the paper I was using. In fact they are mostly cleared by the time they go into the citric acid.

I read in a text that it helps to keep the developer slightly acidic using a little tartaric acid. This seems to help prevent staining while the print is in the developer and help clearing afterward. I have been practicing that as well.

John, not that I have a lot experience with this (= kallitypes - I'm a print out process guy, when it comes to iron sensitizers...), but to my knowing, acidic developer (or fist rinse bath) does promote the oxidizing nature of silver nitrate and cause image degradation / bleeding - while the unexposed sensitizer leech out the paper. That's exactly why Mike Ware designed a new process, Argyrotype which doesn't use silver nitrate - but silver sulfamate instead. See here:

"...An Alternative Silver Salt
Without exception all the iron-silver processes to date have used the most commonly available soluble salt of the metal, namely silver nitrate. But nitrate is an oxidising anion, and tends to dissolve the colloidal image silver during wet processing, especially under acidic conditions. To minimise this loss of image the Kallitype process employs alkaline-buffered developers of high pH, e.g. Borax. Alas, these create a new problem, because they cause hydrolysis of the excess iron(III) in the sensitizer and the deposition of insoluble ferric hydroxide in the image, which ultimately causes it to fade. In principle the cure is simple: replace silver nitrate with a soluble salt of silver having a non-oxidising anion. There are a few such salts known to chemistry, but most of them, e.g. silver fluoride, have unacceptable properties or a level of toxicity that debar them from 'home chemistry'. There is, however, a little-known and relatively innocuous silver salt that does fit the bill: Silver Sulphamate, NH2SO3Ag. This cannot be bought, but is easily made in situ, as I describe below. It can be employed in an acidic sensitizer of pH 2 to 3, which will wash out of the paper cleanly, without hydrolysis of the excess ferric iron, and without any tendency to dissolve the colloidal silver image..."

Therefore, I don't believe an acidic (or too acidic) developer is a good idea. OTOH, an alkali developer also isn't a good idea - even worse. (See Mike Ware's words above...)

Regards,
Loris.

Colin Graham said:

Did you use or have you tried citric acid as a paper treatment?

What you say is pretty much in line with what I saw with this paper- untreated and oxalic treated paper were very very difficult to clear in citric acid, even with 3 fresh baths.

But what I found interesting and the point of my post was that the citric acid pretreatment made the paper very easy to clear, in fact the paper cleared in a sodium citrate developer, before the clearing bath.

My main paper is arches, which I've always used with citric acid prebath. I've never had a problem clearing this paper with citric acid clearing baths, which again makes me wonder about the compatibility of acid treatments with developers and clearing baths. Has anyone done any research or testing on this?

Click to expand...

I tested a few papers with citric acid and acetic acid and the image quality was poor for POP palladium.

Loris Medici said:

Therefore, I don't believe an acidic (or too acidic) developer is a good idea. OTOH, an alkali developer also isn't a good idea - even worse. (See Mike Ware's words above...)

Regards,
Loris.

Click to expand...

Even though I am not currently printing with kallitype I have quite a lot of experience with it. The developer that I have used the most is sodium citrate, which I always made slightly acidic (about pH 6.0) by the addition of a small amount of citric acid. On nearly all papers that I used prints developed in the acidified sodium citrate developer cleared almost completely in the developer and required very little additional clearing, though my normal practice was to run them through two fresh baths of 5% citric acid, five minutes in each bath. I followed this with toning with palladium, before fixing of course. My kallitype prints developed this way have very good Dmax, varying a bit with papers of course. But with a good paper a reflective Dmax of log 1.45 is quite easy to achieve.


Sandy

Thanks Sandy.

Yes, I knew that you were using a slightly acid developer, from previous correspondence. I also remember that you were toning your Kallitypes with gold or platinum or palladium. Maybe toning will obscure the effect of any silver dissolution (due acidic developer) that MAY have occured. Therefore, perhaps it's best to test it with un-toned prints, to see if indeed acidic developer does any harm to the image.

To my knowing / IIRC, Mike Ware's writings about any of the iron-silver processes doesn't mention anything about toned iron-silver prints.

Have you tested and/or used neutral (pH 7) developer, BTW?

I value what have been said by you both. In the practical sense, with so much experience with the process, I'd 100% rely on what you say about kallitypes. OTOH, my own experience with Vandykes (a similar iron-silver process) is that: when you wash the print in neutral water (in first baths right after exposure) it changes color (and lightens/bleach) only after 1-2 minutes, whereas when you use citric acid as the fist wash, the color change / bleaching (this term is not in the sense of erasing the image here - just getting lighter...) is immediate. Therefore, acidity has definitely some effect, but its significance may not be that much - especially when taking into account your vast practical experience. (BTW, silver nitrate's colloidal silver dissolution phenomenon would affect the highlights more than the shadows, I presume - therefore highlights also should be taken into account...)

Personally, I would pay attention to keep my developer as neutral as possible, if I also see the probability of making un-toned prints (from the same negative or using different negatives) and/or I use in-camera negatives (with digital negatives, you calibrate based on the result and you can have separate calibrations for each variation; toned, untoned, different DR requirements, different paper / developer etc. combinations...), AND if I don't experience difficulties in clearing the prints, at the same time...

Best regards,
Loris.

Loris,

Yes, I have tested using the sodium citrate neutral or slightly base. When the developer is alkaline the risk of iron stain is greater and the prints are much harder to clear.

I am not saying that an acid developer solution does not result in some reduction of the silver but my evaluation of the print is based on what it looks like at the end of processing, not on what it looks like after any individual step. Any reduction of the silver that may take place in development can be compensated for by over printing and that is why it is important to carefully time both development with vandyke, and development and clearing with kallitype. After toning there is very little silver left to worry about so there should not be much loss of density in fixing.

All prints that are made of fine silver particles, including argyrotype, salted paper, vandyke, kallitype, satista, etc. *must* be toned for optimum image stability so my processing always incorporates staining as I think it is short sighted economic thinking to use these processes and not tone to completion with a more noble metal.

Sandy

Thanks, Sandy. I guess there's nothing left uncovered in this issue...

Regards,
Loris.

Sandy's Vandyke article

Sandy, have you finished & published your Vandyke article? I'm very interested, and would like to read it. Where and when we will be able to read it?

Regards,
Loris.

Loris Medici said:

Sandy, have you finished & published your Vandyke article? I'm very interested, and would like to read it. Where and when we will be able to read it?

Regards,
Loris.

Click to expand...

Loris,

I have finished the article except for some cleaning up and for my final section which will be on digital negatives. At this time I have a fairly good protocol for making digital negatives for vandyke with both PDN and with QTR.

One of the surprises to me in working with gold toned vandyke is that the process has a much lower ES (exposure scale) than either untoned or palladium toned vandyke. The ES for gold toned vandyke is about log 1.80, which is much less than the log 2.5 I expected based on previous work with palladium toning.

The article is going to be available on the web site of a camera group and I will let you know as soon as it is available at the site, which I don't believe has been completed and put up as yet.

Sandy

Dear Sandy,

sanking said:

...
One of the surprises to me in working with gold toned vandyke is that the process has a much lower ES (exposure scale) than either untoned or palladium toned vandyke. The ES for gold toned vandyke is about log 1.80, which is much less than the log 2.5 I expected based on previous work with palladium toning.
...

Click to expand...

FWIW, I just finished calibrating gold-thiourea toned single coated Vandyke with my new NuArc 26-1KS on Weston paper. The color I use is G255 B10 (printer: HP B9180, you know this one very well...) and the exposure time is 250 units (manufacturer's calibration, each unit ~= 1 sec.). I get 26-27 steps with this combination. My step count is high than yours probably because I was single coating; double coating is expected to increase contrast, right?

sanking said:

...
The article is going to be available on the web site of a camera group and I will let you know as soon as it is available at the site, which I don't believe has been completed and put up as yet.
...

Click to expand...

Waiting eagerly. Thanks much (for the hard work & sharing valuable knowledge) and congratulations in advance.

Regards,
Loris.

P.S. The the first couple of prints below:

Loris Medici said:

My step count is high than yours probably because I was single coating; double coating is expected to increase contrast, right?

Click to expand...

Loris,

Yes, my experience is that double coating does increase contrast, but not by as much as the difference between log 1.8 (my ES) and log 2.7 (your ES). Must be something else going on to explain the difference. No matter, the point is that we must work it all out for ourselves and I know you are very capable of doing that.

BTW, were the visuals you attached actual scans of gold toned vandykes or the digital files used to print the negatives? I ask because there appears to be a lot of color difference between the two images.

Sandy

These are the scans of actual prints.

The first one was - probably only partially - toned with diluted & re-used toner and has indeed a wam hue, whereas the second one was with fresh toner and it has a cold hue. Also, the first one was exposed when the paper was relatively dry compared to the second one; the second print was pretty neutral (unlike the warmth of the fist) right after exposure. Probably there's a very slight white balance difference between the scans too - also adding a little more to the actual difference between them.

Regards,
Loris.

sanking said:

...
BTW, were the visuals you attached actual scans of gold toned vandykes or the digital files used to print the negatives? I ask because there appears to be a lot of color difference between the two images.

Click to expand...

John Lockhart said:

I haven't done any research on this. However, I have found in my short experience using Sodium Citrate as a developer for Kallitypes I have never had a problem clearing my prints pretty much regardless of the paper I was using. In fact they are mostly cleared by the time they go into the citric acid.

Click to expand...

Sorry I wasn't more clear- all the BFK test prints were developed in sodium citrate. The only variable was the acid pretreatment.

But back to Lana, I found that it doesn't take ink well from a 3800, so not very nice for pigment kallitypes. Very grainy and excessive dot gain even with the inks cranked way down. Arches however does take the ink very well.

sanking said:

...
Curiously, COT 320 is a good, but great, paper for gold toned vandyke, as I get only about 1.45, with the acid pre-soak. That compares to well over 1.55 for many papers, and over 1.60 for a few. For palladium COT 320 and Platine have been by far the best papers I have used.
...

Click to expand...

Sandy, I also got (exactly) log 1.45 from COT 320, double coated & gold toned Vandyke (toner diluted 1+1, toning time 10 minutes). Will try with an old batch of Rising Stonhenge (that was purchased on 2004) later...

Interestingly, I wasn't able to get clean whites until I started to add 1 drop of 40% citric acid to 10 drops of sensitizer!

Best regards,
Loris.