Reducing density of prints

[tkamiya]

I have a print on FB paper that is ever slightly too dark. Maybe 1/8EV or so by guestimate. Is it possible to make a very dilute solution of Ferricynide and reduce the density?

Has anyone done this?

 

[David Lyga]

Here is what you need to do. Follow these instructions closely.

Take your standard 'film strength' fixer and mix it 1 part film strength fixer + 2 parts water. Call that mixture 'diluted fixer'. Next take one gram of potassium ferricyanide (same as one milliliter displacement with this chemical so you can measure it volumetrically in a calibrated tube) and mix this gram of potassium ferricyanide into 20 ml of water. Call this mixture 'bleach'.

Now, mix one part of this 'bleach' to nine parts of diluted fixer to get what I prefer the perfect concentration of reducer: strong enough to act efficiently and slow enough to take several minutes. Add a bit of wetting agent or a drop of dish liquid to the mixture and you have a reducer that will work for about 30 minutes.

I use this solution to clear whites to brilliancy and it will slightly increase contrast. When you remove the print (constant agitation please) from the reducer place it for a few seconds into either regular fixer or some of the diluted fixer. Both the diluted fixer and the bleach will last indefinitely in separate containers. And that is that. You will never go back to complaining about dark, dull prints. Just make certain that you watch the print like a hawk (only then will you not squawk) - David Lyga.

 

[Bob Carnie]

This does work for popping the brilliance of the print and mainly works on the highlight, if you midtones and shadows need to be lighter. Its a reprint I am afraid.

 

[Mike Wilde]

Next time investigate the 'dry down' effect. The above notes are what I would recommend for overall, or local highlight brightening. A touch of 'liquid sunshine' as more famed printers call it.

Dry down determination for me means printing a step wedge. You note the printing time and apeture, head height, etc.
Keep all the print processing as normal, fix, wash at least to some degree and dry it in the mircowave. If no microwave, dry it overnight, and mix fresh developer of the same dilution in the next session to continue your tests.

Position the dry step wedge sample print beside the fixer tray.

Then leave the height, aperture, filters, etc same, and process the same step wedge printed onto the same paper, for about 10% less time than the first now dry sample. You should have a very similar look between the wet sample in the fix tray and the dry one beside the tray. You may need to fine tune with another exposure to find your dry down with your FB paper is more like say 8% or 12%.

Make note if this, and then when judging the wet FB test print, you know what adjusted time you want in the dried finished print exposure to match what you see while the test print is wet.

The step wedge need not be fancy; an old Kodak projection print scale works just fine.

 

[2F/2F]

Hi,

Yes, you can do that, followed by a wash, and then fixer to pull out the silver that the bleach "marked" for removal. Be sure to practice on test strips. Get a weak enough dilution so that you have time to control the bleaching.

If you want to pop the highlights ever so slightly, put the print in dry, and pull it out and rinse it the second you see the slightest change in the highlights.

If you want to bleach the whole thing equally (which you probably do), soak the print in water first.

Don't worry about bleaching too little. You can always do it again. But do worry about bleaching too much. It can kill the richness of the print by washing out the low tones.

 

[trexx]

Do some 'testing' first with some sacrifice prints, before doing the desired print. Totally bleach the print, wash. Then redevelop in a softer working developer or snatch when desire level is reached. The redevelopement can be with the light on.

 

[Ian Grant]

This does work for popping the brilliance of the print and mainly works on the highlight, if you midtones and shadows need to be lighter. Its a reprint I am afraid.

Lightening midtones & shadows was once quite common practice years ago. I need to find which book has the suggested formulae, probably my 1921 BJA. Back then materioals were expensive so someimes all means were used to salvage a print.

Ian

 

[CBG]

Another, safer or more easy to control way to lighten prints is to mix a reversible bleach so that if you over bleach which is verrrry easy - don't ask me how I know. I just know. You can just rinse the print off, plop the print back in a print developer like Dektol and bring the print back to full density - and then, bleach again. Once you are sure you have the density you want, rinse the bleached print fully and then fix, wash aid, and do a full wash, etc just like normal.

Reversible bleaches are called rehalogenating bleaches. They turn your image back into a bleached but developable condition.

The proportions are not critical. I just stick with general proportions like the below, but I mix far less.
potassium ferricyanide . . . . 10 grams
potassium bromide . . . . . . . .5 grams
water to . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 litre
I dilute the bleach till it is working slowly enough to be controllable - quite diluted. It can be applied locally witha brush or a qtip so that you have control of details and portions of a print.

And if you overbleach, the print is not ruined, just rinse it off, put it back in the dektol to redevelop and start again. You can also locally redevelop with a brush or qtip too, so that the control is like a second chance to burn and dodge, but in room light.

I mix small amounts and chuck any remains of the bleach after one use.

Note that through redevelopment you can go no darker than your original print so the process does have it's limits. Once you fix the print you will have removed any developable silver and put a limit on the ability to darken the print. It's the fixer that removes undeveloped silver halides. So, I do not add fixer into my bleaches but keep them as a final separate step. There are a lot of posts and threads here on bleaching.

 

[tkamiya]

The re-halogenating bleech sounds quite doable. Question. I have a solution of:

50g Potassium Ferricyanide
10g Potassium Bromide
20g Sodium Carbonate, mono
1000ml Water

It's quite similar to above except for addition of Sodium Carbonate, mono. Would this work as well? This is a solution A in Photographer's Forumulary Sepia toner.

You said "quite dilute".... can you give me an idea of how dilute? like 1:10 dilution?

 

[tkamiya]

I am going ahead with this....

Made 1:20 dilution of above. I think I saw some slight very slight change at 1 minute mark per testing. Did that, fixed, HCA'd and now it's washing. I'll fully dry it and see what happened tomorrow.

Yes, I do know about drydown.... what ended up happening was, after the test print and full drying, I made the final print, except I made another adjustment. Apparently, some light from flair hit the paper and darkened SLIGHTLY. That's what I'm trying to deal with.

Always something....

 

[tkamiya]

Success!

1 minute timing and complete overnight drying has resulted in very slight reduction that I wanted. Thanks everybody for their input.

One question.... if I use rehalogenating bleach and turn developed silver into undeveloped one and do that in broad daylight, wouldn't that cause exposure? I thought the development process and fixing process turned the paper insensitive to additional exposure but we are talking about reversing this process....

 

[trexx]

Success!

Great!

One question.... if I use rehalogenating bleach and turn developed silver into undeveloped one and do that in broad daylight, wouldn't that cause exposure? I thought the development process and fixing process turned the paper insensitive to additional exposure but we are talking about reversing this process....

Yes it does, only where there was silver remaining, which is the desired image.
The development reveals the exposed silver, the fixer removes the undeveloped silver. The rehalogenating bleach makes the silver undeveloped. Which can be developed again.

Now depending on ones needs one can bleach a little and refix or bleach a lot and redevelop. After redevelop you can let dry down and judge the print in subdued light before fixing. If after judging you can re-bleach and develop until you get it right. Once it is fixed, that is as dark as it can be.

 

[tkamiya]

There are no ways to lighten FULLY BROWN TONED print is there?

 

[CBG]

Sorry I didn't get back to this thread till now. The carbonate should be fine. I don't know of any way to directly lighten a fully brown toned print - presuming you don't have the negative - other than copying / rephotographing the print and printing it again from scratch. No matter how well done, there would be at least a small loss of quality. If you have the negative, I'd just print it again.

 

[tkamiya]

Thanks again. I'll just re-print the brown toned one. I'm afraid I'll lose the highlight if I try to reduce that one.