Revere Platinum - WINNING!

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I'd like to jump in here with thoughts about the varying results people seem to be getting with this paper.

First, the pH of a good platinum/palladium paper ideally should be either neutral or slightly acidic because the platinum and palladium chemistry itself is acidic. All the experienced printers on this thread can probably share tales of soaking 'archivally buffered' papers in trays of oxalic acid to neutralize the buffers and make it suitable for the process.

In that regard, I wonder if the differences people seem to be experiencing with this paper could possibly be to slight variations in the ferric oxalate chemistry being used? I know that Kerik and I both use a formula for the ferric oxalate sensitizer that is basically 27g ferric, 4g of oxalic acid and 2g of EDTA in 100ml of water. The oxalic acid makes the sensitizer slightly faster, and I wonder if in this case, it might also be serving to sort of acidify-as-you-coat the paper.

Another variable could be the post development wash water. I know Kerik enjoys nice neutral tap water at his place in California. When I lived in Houston, the water had a pH of 8-8.5! I learned the hard way that dumping a freshly developed print in a tray of plain tap water was a recipe for getting anemic blacks in my prints, not to mention making it virtually impossible to clear properly. I always make sure that my prints never touch anything with an alkaline pH until they are fully cleared.


Clay,

Since ever that I use the Oxalate formula:27g ferric, 2g of oxalic acid in 100ml of water, but not with EDTA.
In your case do you use di,tri or tetrasodium EDTA ?
What do you think will be the advantage of using EDTA apart from the oxalic acid? Add solubility ?

Perhaps, at least, the oxalic acid I've always used explains why I never had clearing problems with any paper, I suppose.

My tap water has today a pH of 7.0 !
 

clay

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The EDTA is added mostly to help the ferric oxalate go into solution. A long time ago, I measured the speed increase from adding the oxalic acid, and I think it was about a half stop. It also increases the exposure scale slightly.
 

photomc

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Good information here and timely, as I have some of both Revere due in. Thanks Guys!
 

DennyS

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FWIW, I did some Pt/Pd tests with both weights from two sources (both East and West coast). I'm using B&S FO (premixed) and found I had to acidify (OA, 3% 5 min) both weights to avoid "dirty" highlights.
 

jkschreiber

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After pondering the results of almost 2 dozen test prints, and the comments from others here, it occurred to me yesterday that one variable no one has mentioned, and one which is easily overlooked, is developer pH. After doing a couple more tests yesterday, new sheet, with and without Tween, results similar to my earlier tests, I thought to check the pH of my developer, since this paper is alkaline according to my pH pen, and found it to be between 7 & 8 or slightly alkaline. (I only have full scale 1-14 litmus paper on hand, so not very precise.) After adjusting the pH of the developer down to ~ 6.5 by adding about a tablespoon of oxalic acid to the 3L bottle of potassium oxalate, I finally was able to make an acceptable test print. Smooth coating, no mottling, good gradation, Dmax ~ 1.4, no clearing problems.

Of course this has no bearing on the coating problems that Dave and I, and maybe others, have been experiencing. Yesterday I did not have that particular problem, but I don't know why. It was a different sheet of paper. The results were much improved by lowering the developer pH, but none of yesterday's tests had the mottling problem that I was having previously.

My FO formula is the same as that used by Kerik and Clay.

What I have learned so far (I think):
  • do use Tween
  • do not acidify paper
  • do not humidify paper
  • ambient humidity should be < 50%
  • maintain developer pH below 7

~ Keith
 

Davec101

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After pondering the results of almost 2 dozen test prints, and the comments from others here, it occurred to me yesterday that one variable no one has mentioned, and one which is easily overlooked, is developer pH. After doing a couple more tests yesterday, new sheet, with and without Tween, results similar to my earlier tests, I thought to check the pH of my developer, since this paper is alkaline according to my pH pen, and found it to be between 7 & 8 or slightly alkaline. (I only have full scale 1-14 litmus paper on hand, so not very precise.) After adjusting the pH of the developer down to ~ 6.5 by adding about a tablespoon of oxalic acid to the 3L bottle of potassium oxalate, I finally was able to make an acceptable test print. Smooth coating, no mottling, good gradation, Dmax ~ 1.4, no clearing problems.

Of course this has no bearing on the coating problems that Dave and I, and maybe others, have been experiencing. Yesterday I did not have that particular problem, but I don't know why. It was a different sheet of paper. The results were much improved by lowering the developer pH, but none of yesterday's tests had the mottling problem that I was having previously.

My FO formula is the same as that used by Kerik and Clay.

What I have learned so far (I think):
  • do use Tween
  • do not acidify paper
  • do not humidify paper
  • ambient humidity should be < 50%
  • maintain developer pH below 7

~ Keith

Thanks for the input, glad your mottling cleared up. For me its no so relavant as the problem happens before development. The ph of the PO for my set up is usually at 6.5.

I tried the Kerik/Clay formula for Ferric Oxalate forumula and the problem still remains. Having spoken to a number of people over the weekend who have a greater knowledge of paper than me, they believe it to be a paper problem and not down to chemistry. I am doing more tests today but unfortunatly it does not look good at the moment.
 
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Davec101

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After doing more tests this morning i have identified the following :

*Using no tween with either rod or brush results in a poor coating in my environment (60-70%RH) and spekling of the print once the print has dried down (this is different to the brown clumps that occur on initially coating the print idenitified in previous posts), it is also possible to identify this problem once the print is in the developer.

*Using a brush instead of a rod and using one drop instead of two drops of tween per 10x8 inch print seems to resolve the problem i was initially having with brown clumps, however i am still not getting a perfect coat and maybe half the spekling than with no tween.

To clarify whether the tween is causing my problem can someone who was getting normal results with 2 drops of tween per 10x8, add maybe one or two drops more and see whether these spots/clumps start to appear once they have laid down a coat. This would then confirm that the tween is the problem and needs to be used as little as possible.

(Edit, I have attached another example of the problem without light shining through it, this is with two drops of tween per 10x8, the clumps are light brown in colour)
 

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Ebbs

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To clarify whether the tween is causing my problem can someone who was getting normal results with 2 drops of tween per 10x8, add maybe one or two drops more and see whether these spots/clumps start to appear once they have laid down a coat. This would then confirm that the tween is the problem and needs to be used as little as possible.

(Edit, I have attached another example of the problem without light shining through it, this is with two drops of tween per 10x8, the clumps are light brown in colour)

I have been adding 1 drop of tween for a 5X7 negative and have not seen any spots. I have printed 6 or so images on the paper, all were spot free. My process has been...
F/O 10 drops, Palladium 9 drops, Na2 1 drop, tween 1 drop. I coat with a brush and let air dry in the dark for 20 min. before exposure.

Has anyone else seen the spots or is Davec the only one?

Matt
 

Davec101

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I have been adding 1 drop of tween for a 5X7 negative and have not seen any spots. I have printed 6 or so images on the paper, all were spot free. My process has been...
F/O 10 drops, Palladium 9 drops, Na2 1 drop, tween 1 drop. I coat with a brush and let air dry in the dark for 20 min. before exposure.

Has anyone else seen the spots or is Davec the only one?

Matt

Next time can you try adding an extra 1 or 2 drops of tween to see if you can force the effect to happen.
 

Davec101

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I think i spoke to soon, on dry down it looks that even the prints i have made without tween exhibit the problem but the a lesser extent. For some reason my tests have shown that the tween exacerbates the problem.

This evening i have printed with three other papers including Cot 320 & Fab Artistico with the same chemistry and there is no trace of the problem.

I will be sending out some of my sheets to other U.K printers to confirm my findings, however sadly its all leading to the conclusion that my batch of 50 sheets is bad.
 

Loris Medici

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Dave, have you tried to coat the paper with distilled water first, wait until it's surface dry (I mean until no surface sheen can be seen when inspected in oblique light...), and then do the actual sensitizer coating? Maybe that could give you good absorption w/o using any wetting agent. (Yes, I know it sounds too cumbersome, but worth to try IMHO...)

Regards,
Loris.
 

Davec101

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Dave, have you tried to coat the paper with distilled water first, wait until it's surface dry (I mean until no surface sheen can be seen when inspected in oblique light...), and then do the actual sensitizer coating? Maybe that could give you good absorption w/o using any wetting agent. (Yes, I know it sounds too cumbersome, but worth to try IMHO...)

Regards,
Loris.

Hi Loris, I am not adverse to trying other techniques to make papers work if they are worth it, Fabriano Artistico is one. Absorbtion maybe a problem however now that i have identified the problem is occuring to a lesser extent without tween absorbtion is not my main issue now, I would like to understand what sort of sizing the paper has and whether this is the problem effecting my batch.

Francesco, what type of sizing is used in making Revere?
 

Ebbs

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Revere Platinum Tween Spot Test

So I did a test tonight with varying amounts of Tween. I would have to agree with Davec that the tween looks like it is causing the spots. I did my standard mix for a 5X7 negative and only varied the amount of tween. I also coated a piece of Revere Platinum with just tween. The paper appeared to blister randomly where the tween was brushed on. The blisters did go down after about 1/2 hour.
My conditions tonight were 45% humidity and 75 degrees. Each square was coated with a brush. The mix is 10 drops F/O, 9 drops PD, 1 drop Na2, and the last drop in the count is the tween. As you can see as the tween increased so did the brown spots. I was not having this problem before and I took this sheet from the bottom of my pile.


Matt
 

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jkschreiber

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Matt,

Have you printed them yet? Are you getting a smooth rich black in the samples without Tween?

So far, all of my tests without Tween have produced slightly anemic speckled blacks that seem to be common with alkaline papers. I get a similar result with BFK, for example. Acidification usually solves that problem. With some papers Tween solves that problem too, but it does appear to be causing this new problem on Revere. I typically use 1 drop of Tween per 1.5 - 2 ml of coating solution with most papers. I would guess that your 10+9+1 coating mix is ~ 1ml or maybe a bit less, so even 1 drop is a higher proportion than my standard. However, with the Revere tests I have been using a mix of .5ml FO + .5ml Pd + 1 drop Tween. (No Na2.) Tomorrow, or more likely Wednesday, I will try again diluting the Tween (or mixing 2ml) so that it is consistent with my usual practice. Maybe we are just using too much of the stuff.

~ Keith
 

Davec101

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So I did a test tonight with varying amounts of Tween. I would have to agree with Davec that the tween looks like it is causing the spots. I did my standard mix for a 5X7 negative and only varied the amount of tween. I also coated a piece of Revere Platinum with just tween. The paper appeared to blister randomly where the tween was brushed on. The blisters did go down after about 1/2 hour.
My conditions tonight were 45% humidity and 75 degrees. Each square was coated with a brush. The mix is 10 drops F/O, 9 drops PD, 1 drop Na2, and the last drop in the count is the tween. As you can see as the tween increased so did the brown spots. I was not having this problem before and I took this sheet from the bottom of my pile.


Matt

Thanks Matt for taking time to investigate this issue. Those are the exact spots/clumps I am getting and seeing at 2 and 4 drops of tween. For me I need to use tween with Revere to get a good coat without speckling however it exacerbates the problem of the spots/clumps. Even if i dont use tween the problem still exists to a lesser extent.
 

Davec101

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Matt,


So far, all of my tests without Tween have produced slightly anemic speckled blacks that seem to be common with alkaline papers. I get a similar result with BFK, for example. Acidification usually solves that problem. With some papers Tween solves that problem too, but it does appear to be causing this new problem on Revere. I typically use 1 drop of Tween per 1.5 - 2 ml of coating solution with most papers. I would guess that your 10+9+1 coating mix is ~ 1ml or maybe a bit less, so even 1 drop is a higher proportion than my standard. However, with the Revere tests I have been using a mix of .5ml FO + .5ml Pd + 1 drop Tween. (No Na2.) Tomorrow, or more likely Wednesday, I will try again diluting the Tween (or mixing 2ml) so that it is consistent with my usual practice. Maybe we are just using too much of the stuff.

~ Keith

At the moment 1 drop seems to not be enough to get a good coat in my environment and 2 drops makes the spots/clumps worse. A good friend Stan Klimek suggested using 5 drops of distilled water per 10x8 instead of tween, i will give that a go, however i believe the underlying issue is with the paper.
 

costelvis

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Hi Loris, I am not adverse to trying other techniques to make papers work if they are worth it, Fabriano Artistico is one. Absorbtion maybe a problem however now that i have identified the problem is occuring to a lesser extent without tween absorbtion is not my main issue now, I would like to understand what sort of sizing the paper has and whether this is the problem effecting my batch.

Francesco, what type of sizing is used in making Revere?

Good morning David,
surface sizing is vegetal gelatine. Mass sizing is Aquapel.
 

clay

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These dots look similar to the ones I occasionally get with platine and a few other papers. My theory was that they are caused by either a breakdown or inconsistency in the internal (mass) sizing of the paper. Usually when they appear, I just go ahead and make the print anyway, and hope that they do not show up in the print. Nothing to lose, since the paper is already coated and the alternative is to toss it. Sometimes (but not often), the print will look fine.

My semi-educated guess from all the information on this thread is that the problem stems from the paper being slightly basic instead of neutral to acidic. Acidification is probably the best solution with the paper already in hand. I personally have never found Tween to be anything other than a troublemaker in this process, and generally another solution can be found to handle the problems it supposedly solves.

Has anyone tried monkeying with the coating/drying/re-humidification routine yet? This paper sounds a lot like BFK, and I have a specific routine that gives me good results with this paper. I acidify it and let it dry. When I coat, I brush the solution on, and let it sit on the surface for only 30-60 seconds until the sheen has just disappeared, and then set the coating with a hairdryer. I then put the paper in a dark cabinet under a cool fan and let it rehumidify to ambient RH of about 40-50% and then print with the usual protection against dessication during exposure (a piece of mylar under the print in my vacuum frame). I am darkroom-less for the next two months, so I cannot test this myself. But it might be interesting for someone to try some different routines for these steps.
 

Ebbs

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Matt,

Have you printed them yet? Are you getting a smooth rich black in the samples without Tween?

So far, all of my tests without Tween have produced slightly anemic speckled blacks that seem to be common with alkaline papers. I get a similar result with BFK, for example. Acidification usually solves that problem. With some papers Tween solves that problem too, but it does appear to be causing this new problem on Revere. I typically use 1 drop of Tween per 1.5 - 2 ml of coating solution with most papers. I would guess that your 10+9+1 coating mix is ~ 1ml or maybe a bit less, so even 1 drop is a higher proportion than my standard. However, with the Revere tests I have been using a mix of .5ml FO + .5ml Pd + 1 drop Tween. (No Na2.) Tomorrow, or more likely Wednesday, I will try again diluting the Tween (or mixing 2ml) so that it is consistent with my usual practice. Maybe we are just using too much of the stuff.

~ Keith

Keith

I did not print this test page. The few prints I have made all had one drop of tween and no spots. The blacks were good but not great. but that could be I needed to expose them longer as I havent dialed in my work flow for this paper yet. I have just been playing and now with these spots... I should be able to get back to this later in the week and i will print one without tween and see how it looks.

Matt
 
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Kerik

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I agree with Clay. I have found tween to be more of a problem causer than solver in this process. If you have any Everclear on hand (190 proof ethanol), try adding 2 or 3 drops for an 8x10.
 

PVia

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... Stan Klimek suggested using 5 drops of distilled water per 10x8 instead of tween, i will give that a go, however i believe the underlying issue is with the paper.

Dave, have you tried Stan's suggestion yet?
 

David Hatton

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Just a minute here gentlemen. Isn't this paper called Revere Platinum? Is it or is it not being marketed as a paper specifically tailored to the needs of the Platinum printer? Why is it gelatin coated? Why is it alkali? Why all this hoop jumping? I think someone somwhere is pulling somebodys leg somehow...:wondering:
David
 

pschwart

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Fair questions. My expectation is that the paper should perform *at least* as well as COT320 or Platine. For me, those provide a dmax of 1.4-1.6, coat easily with no Tween, and don't require acidification or any fancy humidification regime in my workspace which is typically 50% RH.
My paper is still on order but my takeaway thus far: it would have been desirable to solicit more testing so the paper could have been exposed to lots of workflows in a lot of different environments. I'll bet we all would have jumped at the opportunity to test and report if we had been provided with 10 8x10 sheets or even had the opportunity to purchase 25 sheets of 8x10.

Francesco: it's not too late to double back and do this kind of testing.
We would sure like to see this paper get it right ...

Just a minute here gentlemen. Isn't this paper called Revere Platinum? Is it or is it not being marketed as a paper specifically tailored to the needs of the Platinum printer? Why is it gelatin coated? Why is it alkali? Why all this hoop jumping?
David
 
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