Ques on spot bleaching

I am trying to produce a series of solarized prints , tri toned with sepia, gold and iron blue.
So far I have perfected*to my eyes* the perfect balance for the tri tone and am ready to start printing my first serious show of my own work.
The print size is 24inch x 36 inch

Problem

I still feel that I do not have enough* separation, zip, contrast,* in the highlight section and I believe that if I hand bleach with a brush the untoned print before the tri toning I may be able to create the final look I am trying to achieve.
Straight over all bleaching in the first stage for the sepia is not giving me the look I am envisioning.

For those doing hand bleaching with brushes could you pass on any advice that would be pertinent to what I am trying to do.
For example what post hand bleaching do I have to do, ie. fix , hypo and wash. before I start Tri Toning ??
What method would you try when working with large prints?
I do have extremely large sinks and trays, but should I have a bucket of fix on hand to sponge on the print or will straight water be enough to stop the bleaching action.?
Because we are dealing with solarizations the highlight region as you may imagine they are a shade of grey, what type of bleach/dilution would you recommend?
any and all help would be greatly appreciated
Bob

Bob, back in the 70's & early 80's I did a lot of hand colouring, and used to tone with sepia, gold and blue toners first.

Everyone said you needed to mask the print, the areas you didn't want to bleach first, but I found it far easier to bleach selectively by hand.

I think your best method would be to use very dilute Farmers bleach, then fix rewash and tone.

Often I used an Iodine/Iodide bleach but these are quite severe and it can be difficult to remove the Iodine stain.

Something you might also look at is dye couplers, you bleach an area with ferricyanide/bromide and redevelop using a C41 type developer with the relevant dye coupler added. Tetenal used to make a kit, but its easy to do for yourself.

Ian

Bleaching

Hey

the best is to use a bleach composed of potassium hexa cyanoferat (the red one)without hypo ,no farmers bleach by the pressence of hypo the print is fixed ,using a pure product allows a repair ,you can redevelop your print
The bleaching has to be done on a well washed print
i prepare 10 % solution wich i can dilute further on ,this alows you also bleaching the whole print and redevelop in daylight you can stop ,and fix even an other kind of developer can be used

succes and greetings

jm

jm, in many ways I'd agree, but these ferricyanide bleaches tend to give a sharper edge effect than a farmers type reducer.

It's a case of trial and error, a plain Potassium Ferricyanide (hexa-cyanoferrate) is not a good idea at all, as the image cant be redeveloped, you need vto have an excess of Potassium bromide. When toning sometimes chloride is preferable to bromide depending on the colour you desire.

Ian

Bob Carnie said:

I am trying to produce a series of solarized prints , tri toned with sepia, gold and iron blue.
So far I have perfected*to my eyes* the perfect balance for the tri tone and am ready to start printing my first serious show of my own work.
The print size is 24inch x 36 inch

Problem

I still feel that I do not have enough* separation, zip, contrast,* in the highlight section and I believe that if I hand bleach with a brush the untoned print before the tri toning I may be able to create the final look I am trying to achieve.
Straight over all bleaching in the first stage for the sepia is not giving me the look I am envisioning.

For those doing hand bleaching with brushes could you pass on any advice that would be pertinent to what I am trying to do.
For example what post hand bleaching do I have to do, ie. fix , hypo and wash. before I start Tri Toning ??
What method would you try when working with large prints?
I do have extremely large sinks and trays, but should I have a bucket of fix on hand to sponge on the print or will straight water be enough to stop the bleaching action.?
Because we are dealing with solarizations the highlight region as you may imagine they are a shade of grey, what type of bleach/dilution would you recommend?
any and all help would be greatly appreciated
Bob

Click to expand...

Hi Bob, my bleaching method is as follows:

Stuff required
One tray of regular fix

Hose with water running very gently

Brush or cotton ball to apply bleach depending on the size of the area to bleach. Brush for small, cotton ball for larger.

Cotton ball or sponge to apply fixer during bleach process

SqueeGee to remove excess water before each round of bleaching
Small container of Ferricyanide bleach. I mix mine by colour not by % it is difficult to describe the colour but it's a very light straw colour. You also need to mix a small amount of fresh fix with the ferri, this helps to restrain the action a little. I'd suggest a little experimentation here to arrive at the best strength for you but I know you'll do that anyway.

A lot of patience

Method
After properly fixing the print rinse, but no need to wash,

Lay the print on a flat surface, one of your large trays is perfect I use a hose with the water running quite gently to remove any trace of fix or you can simply rinse it in the big holding tray you have near the washer.

Remove all excess moisture from the print this helps prevent the bleach from bleeding into areas you do not wish to bleach. Having said that if the adjacent areas are dark you will have no real problems.

Using the brush or cotton ball apply the bleach using continuous movement for about 15 seconds to reduce the risk of staining. If you see the bleach working it is too strong.

Stop the bleaching action by swabbing with a large cotton ball soaked in fresh fix and then apply the slowly running water from the hose over the area being bleached to clear the fix away. I bleach on a slightly tilted surface and run the water from the top side of the area being bleached so that ut takes the liquid away from that area.

Make sure that all bleach has been removed by the water, squeegee the excess water and repeat the previous step making sure that you again only apply bleach for about 15 seconds.

After three bleach applications place the print in the tray of fresh fix for 20 to 30 seconds. I do this, again to help prevent staining even though I have stopped the bleaching action by applying fix with a cotton ball. Rinse the print in water, squeegee and apply the bleach as before.

Repeat this process until the required tonality is reached.

When bleaching is completed fix for a further 2 to 3 minutes then hypo clear and wash as normal.

I would again stress the importance of using a weaker bleach and taking longer to do the job rather than trying to do it quickly and risk wrecking the print.

I have used this method for 25 years and have had no staining problems.

Have fun.

Thanks Les

Eavesdroppin' Murray

while les' description is detailed and good
i prefer to bleach without added fixer (btw. i always thought that adding fixer accelerates the bleaching process, not restrain it).
bleaching with added fixer (or using it immidiately after bleaching) is permanent, while bleaching with pure ferri (or with added potassium bromide) is reversible.

i have a tendency to overdo the bleaching process and when you ruin a good print with bleaching it's very frustrating, especially when using large paper. that's why i stopped adding fixer and only re-fix after all bleaching is completed.

Thank you all for your help. Here are some issues I am concerned with that may give more backgound info.

I am doing a series of 16x20 tests with the full monty applied after I get this issue sorted out.
these sample prints will be the basis or practice step before I go into the Murals so I can make some mistakes and under/over bleach without worring.

Here is what I am trying to do with the Murals, so bear with me . Archival permanence is every bit as important to me as the LOOK.
Each day I will be taking two negs to the darkroom and producing 7 prints each to have a limited edition of 5 for these prints. The extra two prints from experience will be saftey/backup until finished. Once I have 5 finals Matted I will destroy the two inferior versions.

Two a day is all I can manage, I want to leave the murals in a cold wash overnight, the next day I want to highlight bleach , wash ,proper fix, slight wash,hypo clear, slight wash, bleach sepia, wash, gold tone, wash and iron blue tone then final wash.
the reason for not doing any drying overnight is the handling/damage possibilty with large pieces fo paper , outside size of the paper is approx 30x42 inch Ilford MG.

Am I risking any permanance issues by not final washing to the very end?
It is a lot of steps and the introduction of bleach/fix/toner after the basic print is done worrys me in regards to proper attention to archivalness of the final print.

Your ideas would be greatly appreciated once again.
Bob

Bob Carnie said:

Am I risking any permanance issues by not final washing to the very end?
It is a lot of steps and the introduction of bleach/fix/toner after the basic print is done worrys me in regards to proper attention to archivalness of the final print.

Click to expand...

I'm no expert on spot bleaching but I have done some for the same reason your doing it.

I came across a FB print that was done over twenty years ago and the bleached part was very yellow. Don't know why this happened - I can only guess what I was doing that long ago - I always did the achival wash with FB prints.

My guess is that I was only experimenting with this print and didn't give it the full treatment, or maybe I didn't fix enough. It wasn't a toned print - bromide type.

panastasia said:

I'm no expert on spot bleaching but I have done some for the same reason your doing it.

I came across a FB print that was done over twenty years ago and the bleached part was very yellow. Don't know why this happened - I can only guess what I was doing that long ago - I always did the achival wash with FB prints.

My guess is that I was only experimenting with this print and didn't give it the full treatment, or maybe I didn't fix enough. It wasn't a toned print - bromide type.

Click to expand...

In my experience your comment about lack of fixing is probably the reason for the staining. In the description of my method I say that after three 15 second bleach applications I immerse the print in a tray of fresh fixer even though I stop each bleaching application by rubbing the area with a cotton swab full of fix and then rinse the print with running water. This is simply to ensure that I have neutralised the bleach and have left no trace in the fibres of the paper. 25 years ago when I first used bleach I did not do this and found that the prints stained within 12 months. Since I revised my method I have never had a stained print.

This is GREAT information. Thanks All!