I’d like advice on two issues with my recent salt and albumen prints.
1 — Fogging(pls. see the image)
Salt print (left) and albumen print (right) were made under identical conditions, with 5 minutes in gold-borax toner.
Only the margin outside the image was masked with Rubylith.
Paper: Hahnemühle Platinum Rag.
I’m seeing:
– Fog just above the image in the salt print
– Fog around the image in the albumen print
For the albumen print: silver nitrate solution was applied to a fully dried sheet, with two drops of citric acid. It dried in the darkroom for about 80 minutes, and some fog was already visible before exposure.
I toned those prints before fixing.
What are effective ways to prevent this fog?
2 — Fixing Time (for both processes)
Ellie Young recommends 8 minutes (two 4-min baths), but Christopher James suggests only 30–60 seconds.
In my tests, the 8-minute fix noticeably bleached the print.
I’d appreciate opinions on this large difference in fixing times.
Thank you!
1 — Fogging(pls. see the image)
Salt print (left) and albumen print (right) were made under identical conditions, with 5 minutes in gold-borax toner.
Only the margin outside the image was masked with Rubylith.
Paper: Hahnemühle Platinum Rag.
– Fog just above the image in the salt print
– Fog around the image in the albumen print
For the albumen print: silver nitrate solution was applied to a fully dried sheet, with two drops of citric acid. It dried in the darkroom for about 80 minutes, and some fog was already visible before exposure.
I toned those prints before fixing.
What are effective ways to prevent this fog?
2 — Fixing Time (for both processes)
Ellie Young recommends 8 minutes (two 4-min baths), but Christopher James suggests only 30–60 seconds.
In my tests, the 8-minute fix noticeably bleached the print.
I’d appreciate opinions on this large difference in fixing times.
Thank you!
