Reversal print processing video..new approach

himself · Dec 11, 2017

ok, so I'll just keep working with rc I think for now. I have some old Forte that I know liths, but unfortunately it's really old and seems to have lost a lot of sensitivity. I've only managed to get an image rating it at 1.5 (+ 3 stops), which would be no good for portraits I reckon.

ned,

that looks like a really interesting idea!
I'm thinking of trying some watercolour paper coated (by brush) with rollei liquid emulsion next to see how it handles bleaching : )

NedL · Dec 17, 2017

I know you guys are all doing this already, but I've been successfully using the same bottle of bleach now for quite a few prints. I haven't counted them but more than a dozen so far. Not sure what went wrong the last time I tried it, but maybe it was dried fixer on the funnel I used to put it back into the bottle ( this time I'm not using the funnel! ) So I'm going through my H2O2 a lot more slowly now.

Here's one I made today. The old palm trees caught my eye and I walked down the street to look at them.... they were at a Korean Baptist Church. We don't have all that many palm trees here, but some of the ones we do have were planted more than a century ago. These could easily be that old. I'll probably go back again... something about palm trees and pinhole!

This was re-developed in thiourea... first one I did during the daytime and it was fun to watch it spring up in full daylight.

Korean Baptist Church

NedL
Dec 17, 2017
6

Another pinhole paper positive made using weak 3% H2O2 as the bleach.
A neat thing about this...

himself · Dec 19, 2017

looks great and I'm sure it will make a huge difference now that you can reuse your bleach.
I know you're using a weaker solution than I am, but just a word of caution, when mine goes it suddenly goes. It can be literally be 1 good next bad.

I'm still not getting any results trying lith developer as the second developer, and after speaking to a friend who's a very experienced lith printer, I've decided that maybe it would be better to try both stages in lith. So far I've managed to make a lith paper negative (that I fixed rather than trying to reverse) which looks nice, but because of the amount of trial and error in lith printing I'm having a little trouble getting all 3 stages to work together : )

NedL · Jan 4, 2018

As I mentioned earlier, I've noticed that if you re-develop in thiourea ( does not need any re-exposure), the negative likes plenty of exposure, and if you re-expose and re-develop in normal print developer, the negative likes to be a bit on the underexposed side. At least this is true with the weak 3% H2O2 bleach that I've been using. My quart bottle of 3% H2O2 is still going ... dozens of prints and weeks later!

With re-exposing in mind, yesterday I decided to expose one for the sky. Paper negatives can make really neat skies, but usually everything else is a silhouette.

Through the windshield par Ned, on ipernity

NedL · Feb 4, 2018

I haven't made one in a few weeks... my 3% H2O2 + citric acid bleach is stored in the brown plastic bottle the H2O2 came in. Several times in the past few weeks I've noticed the bottle was bulging and opened the cap to let the pressure out. I suspect it is slowly decomposing. So be careful: there may be some danger that it will burst the container it is stored in.

NedL · May 21, 2018

Quick update: my bleach is still good after more than 6 months in the original brown quart drugstore H2O2 bottle. I let the "bulge" pressure out twice since that last post, but not for the past couple months... figured since it stopped bulging maybe it was dead, but it works even faster now ( about 7 or 8 minutes ). I have no idea how many prints have gone through it by now, but lots... lots of capacity.

himself · Aug 6, 2019

So I've been playing with this technique again after a bit of a break from it and decided to try using it to make b/w slides, and wanted to share the results.
The image attached was shot on 4x5 green/blue xray film (rated at 150 asa originally, with +3 stops for this process) and developed using dektol 1:2 for both dev stages and the same bleach concentration as with previous prints.

Original slide looks ok, maybe a little thin, but there's no staining. It did however take 6 minutes to bleach rather than the usual 3 with paper.

I just have to remember now if I need more or less exposure for better blacks.

himself · Aug 8, 2019

Another update for anyone still interested.

I tried an 8x10 reversal last night with the same xray film and it bleached and reversed great again. There's no staining again and it seems that the staining problems in the past were somehow due to the paper base.

This time I rated the film as +2 stops and it still looks a little thin in the shadows, but that could be because it needs so much backlighting due to the blue base of the xray film.

NedL · Aug 8, 2019

Cool! I'm still reading this thread with interest.

himself · Aug 8, 2019

good to know I'm not talking to myself : )

I also did an in-camera 20x24 reversal print recently. It looked great, but handling that much bleach was a little unnerving, so I don't think I would have ever tried it with traditional bleaches.

NedL · Aug 8, 2019

Wow! The biggest ones I've done were 8x11 inches... still fits in a small tray!

himself · Aug 9, 2019

It was fun, but the photo was nothing special just did it to see if it was possible.
I'm hoping to make more that size soon.

ethan moses · Aug 28, 2019

Hey all,

I've been a reader of Photrio message boards for a while now, but this is my first post. I wanted to share this video, which basically comes out of the work you guys have all done on this thread. Super big thanks to Joe Van Cleave and Don Froula, I'm definitely standing on the shoulders of giants here. I'd like to do some more experiments using some other over the counter phenol developers instead of dektol, and also add a sodium sulfite clearing bath to get rid of any warm tone left on the paper. For now, I hope you guys enjoy this video:

Thanks very very much for all of your hard work and sharing your experiments on this forum!

Ethan

removed account4 · Aug 28, 2019

hi ethan
great video, thanks for posting it !
have you tried it with the rust off stuff ( i think that is what its called ? ) it fogs and 2nd develops and fixes all at the same time ( i think ? )
looking forward to your next video and posts and btw welcome to photrio !
john

NedL · Aug 28, 2019

I think that's "iron out" which contains sodium dithionite ( which someone else is currently discussing for use in silver recovery ).
I want to try that too!

himself · Sep 30, 2019

I've been using this process for a while now to make some 8x10 slides, and up until now haven't been having any problems. But the most recent batch I've made have started to have the same staining that was a bit of a pain when processing paper.

With the paper ones I just use pot ferri to clear the staining and it works fine, so was wondering if I could also use that on the slides too.

I'm assuming it'll be fine, but just wanted to ask if anyone could think of a reason why not before I try on a bunch of slides I'm not going to be able to reshoot.

ethan moses · Nov 13, 2019

Hey All,

two things to report: 1: Hypo Clearing Agent for a few minutes before the second developer will get rid of the yellow stain in the process I made a video about a few posts back.

The other is not about the process in this thread, but has lots of parallels in theory, and I think people reading this thread might get a kick out of and be able to improve upon:

Joe made a longer form video which has a bit more about the process:

thanks!

nolan · Dec 31, 2019

Good morning all,

Yesterday was my first try with this process, on 8x10s, using Joe’s recipe for separate baths for the CA and H2O2. The first 4 images worked very well but then things went south on me. The 5th image did not bleach as well so I mixed up a fresh batch of CA and H2O2 thinking it was that. But it failed. I noticed that that I get a lot of black specks in the H2O2 tray and they seem to attach themselves to the paper.

I think my chemical measurements were not very clinical and could have caused the issues.

What would be the best CA and H2O2 dilutions?
Does anyone have an idea what the black specks could be?

Regards to the yellow staining, I actually like it. It adds to my vision.

Here is the 2nd image I made.

Here is an image from the new chemical batch

Apologies for the rotation... first time uploading to a forum.

All advise and assistance would be greatly appreciated and thank you to all of you that have made their inputs on this process. Really amazing stuff!!!

Nolan
South Africa

relistan · Dec 20, 2020

I found this thread very informative and have referenced it quite a lot lately. Thanks for all the contributions!

It might be of some interest to you folks that you can use Vinegar/acetic acid to very good effect. Might be worth a shot at room temperature with paper. Or in combination with the stronger peroxide you folks have been using. The basic process I followed was from Kelly-Shane Fuller. Here's a link to my results with film: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/b-w-reversal-with-hydrogen-peroxide.180091/page-3#post-2357373

relistan · Dec 24, 2020

Found another interesting thing that may be pertinent:

"When oxidation occurs in a seasoned tank solution, the sulfide quickly bonds with dissolved silver to form an insoluble silver sulfide. This dark-colored precipitate usually builds up on racks and rollers, and is deposited on the surface of the film or paper being processed. Depending on the severity, a golden-tan,brown, or black deposit is left on the surface of prints; in film processors, small black specks deposit on the film surface." From: https://125px.com/docs/techpubs/kodak/cis167-Removal_of_Sulfide_Silver.pdf

This may be the cause of the spotting and yellow/brown staining some folks were seeing. The solution is most probably just a good wash between the developer and bleach. A stop bath is apparently not always enough?

tezzasmall · Jan 5, 2021

Wow! There's a lot of information on this here thread.

I'm reading it all, post by post, and am up to page eight at the moment.

Lots of info to take in, but I have all the bits required to hand and I can't wait to give the process a go.

Light outside in the UK at the moment is rather dim, and sunny days are rare at the moment, so I'm not sure how long an exposure will take or if there's even enough sunshine at all for this process to work just now? The next time there's some sunshine, I'll nip outside to take a few test shots in the garden.

@relistan: With both of us being quite close and getting similar lighting conditions, it will be interesting to read your up to date posts.

Terry S

cyoder · Mar 30, 2023

To anyone still monitoring this thread, I wanted to share my recent experiences and request some advice based on the information below. Admittedly I am changing too many variables at once, but maybe someone can offer some guidance on where I might otherwise be going wrong.

Materials:

Arista EDU Ultra VC RC Paper exposed at ISO 3
Ilfosol 1+14 concentrate
Bleach Methods
- First time: 2 Tbsp Citric Acid dissolved in around 400ml of water, separate 12% H2O2 bath
- Second Time: 5% H2O2 with 1 TBsp citric acid concentrate mixed in
A dual purpose water stop bath/rinse tray in the darkroom, used sink for other rinses when able to be in the light
Standard sprint Fixer 1+4 concentrate

Process:

Develop to completion, which happens rapidly at the concentration I am using. This could be issue 1. I pull it out and immediately wash in water bath.
Bleach to complete white.
- On my first attempt with separate CA and H2O2, I got great bleaching action. Bubbles & the image turned completely white. But my second image using the same trays 5 minutes later had zero bleaching action whatsoever.
- In an effort to simplify things, I tried a more diluted 5% H2O2 combined with CA. This had zero bleaching action.
Expose to light for ~1 minute
Develop again, which usually turned the image incredibly dark, with no reversal. I'm basically push processing at this point I assume? Idk I'm a noob.
Stop bath and then fix for 2-3 minutes.

Results:
All over the place, understandably. My very first attempt yielded a positive, albeit a crappy one due to how the chemicals smudged/dried on it. It had a yellow cast and looked very old-timey in a sad way.
My followup attempts are all negatives still, due to the inaction of the bleach I am assuming. I would like to get this dialed in to where I can use a standard first aid ~3% concentration of H2O2, but maybe it's my paper type that is incompatible with this process?

I know this writeup is all over the place, but I'd appreciate any pointers. Thank you all in advance!

jmoche · May 11, 2023

I've been messing around with reversal processing of both Arista EDU variable contrast RC paper and Ilford MGRC using the process described here:

A Better Black and White Reversal Bleach with Hydrogen Peroxide

In a previous post, I described how to develop your own black and white slides using a simple bleach based on hydrogen peroxide and vinegar. This post is about an improved bleach that has a number of advantages over that one. There are a lot of patents out there from the 1970s through the late...

imager.ie

I'm working in an Ilford Pop-up Darkroom with no running water, so I can't do what I would consider to be adequate washes between steps. I've had mixed results with this process. I've gotten some prints that were absolutely perfect, and I've gotten prints that were sometimes mottled, sometimes yellow, sometimes brown, and sometimes a combination of these defects. I think that the mottling and other issues are a result of insufficient washing before the clearing bath. I've found that I get faster bleaching if I move the print back and forth between the bleach and a tray just containing citric acid, ala Joe Van Cleave.

Even though the process as described in the link above is designed for film, I haven't tried reversing any film yet. I'll eventually get to it, but I'm more interested right now in getting to at least an 80% keeper rate with prints. I hope this thread isn't dead, because the more of us there are experimenting with this, the more likely we are to get to a consistent formula and process.

Svensalih · Jul 31, 2023

himself said:
Thanks and sure, more time the better. But I'm not sure yet how much difference there is between say 2,3,5 minutes, but considering how little difference there really is in person between 2 and 5 minutes, I wouldn't expect too much.

I should really do a larger resolution scan, but you can see the difference in tone and mottling here. 5 minutes is on the left.

View attachment 188119

No positive image I'm

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Reversal print processing video..new approach

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