SALT PRINTING - 3 New Prints

[JOHN McMURTRIE]

Last night I prepared 3 sheets of paper mixing a 30ml 2g mix of Sodium Chloride + 1g of Geletine and re-used my previously mixed Silver Nitrate and citric acid solution. I made a box with coat hanger wire pushed through it to make shelves to house 3 pieces of paper and left them to dry. Today in the UK it was very cloudy which apparently is great for better contrast than a sunny day. It was also humid which is worth noting. I also ensured the negative's had a slightly better D-Max than my first attempt.

The first print of Slash I used a digital negative made from the original transparency. It is a shot I took a few years ago and knew this would work well in this medium. Print time was 10 minutes and I made sure I loaded the frame in safe light (I know it can be done in low light but a torch with a red filter on in the shed works for me). I also unloaded the frame in dark conditions and kept everything dark until 5 minutes into the fixing.

I also made a print of Ville Valo. Printing negative made from the original transparency.

I am really happy with the results. Especially the paper coating which is starting to look consistent. I have one small area that did not receive any salt or silver Nitrate which is odd as I checked thoroughly after each coating. On that same print (above) I have 2 black spots on the right (is this contamination from the previous fixing?). The contrast levels are excellent. Taking the paper out in safe light conditions stopped any fogging and the contrast is good (especially on the Ville print).

I also printed a view of Polruan on the river Fowey in Cornwall. This time I sensitised my paper all the way to the edge on both coatings. I think I could have given it a slightly longer exposure to burn in the sky. The tonal range is excellent.

All in all a great day Salt Printing. Will be interested to see how they look once fully dry and what discolouration occurs.

 

[pschwart]

Good work. Now time to tweak your workflow to eliminate all that chemical fog where the paper has been sensitized outside the image area. The first step would be to mask your negatives. This is an easy way to check your processing -- you should be able to achieve paper white under the masked areas. Any tone remaining under the masking suggests insufficient clearing and/or fixing, meaning the print is going to degrade over time. Avoiding staining and chemical fog can be challenging with a lot of the iron-based alt processes.

 

[JOHN McMURTRIE]

I have got some foil tape on order which I will use for masking on some. I actually think the rawness of the edges actually adds a 'hand made' quality to the prints which I really want to keep! I have a lot of prints made for commercial reasons which are clean and tidy but this process lends itself well to brush marks and the odd drip stain. As you say I really need to ensure I am washing out all the unexposed Silver Chlorides and fixer. At the moment I am only using rapid fixer but I think I need an additional hyper stop fixer wash out stage too. It is early days and I am only experimenting for now. The plan is to produce a series of 10 shots and print off 25 Limited Edition runs of each. A lot of work, so I need to ensure everything is going to last and be consistent. I am many weeks away from that happening.

 

[nmp]

I have got some foil tape on order which I will use for masking on some. I actually think the rawness of the edges actually adds a 'hand made' quality to the prints which I really want to keep! I have a lot of prints made for commercial reasons which are clean and tidy but this process lends itself well to brush marks and the odd drip stain. As you say I really need to ensure I am washing out all the unexposed Silver Chlorides and fixer. At the moment I am only using rapid fixer but I think I need an additional hyper stop fixer wash out stage too. It is early days and I am only experimenting for now. The plan is to produce a series of 10 shots and print off 25 Limited Edition runs of each. A lot of work, so I need to ensure everything is going to last and be consistent. I am many weeks away from that happening.

John:

I actually like your borders. It's a combination of the clean edge and one that has dark border all around that many in Alt community go for. It keeps the "hand made" quality, yet provides a good separation from the frame. I might have to steal the idea.

Really good work, by the way. You don't mess around!

:Niranjan.

 

[NedL]

I like the black borders but agree w/ Phil you could mask the area outside of them to have white paper.

Another way to achieve this is to mask around the image area ( including the thin black borders ) with light tack masking tape ( blue painter's tape that has been stuck and unstuck to a surface 5 or 6 times works well -- try it first on a scrap of paper to make sure it won't lift off any of the paper surface ) then coat the silver nitrate only inside the taped area. A little silver nitrate will inevitably leak under the tape, it will look like the top border on your Ville print, still a sort of "rough" border. You need to pay particular attention right along the edges of the tape, it's easy to "miss" coating right next to it.

The disadvantage of this is that you won't have any masked coated area to help judge if you've eliminated fog and got the brightest possible highlights. I think the main thing that's happening is that a little light is still getting through the dense border you printed on the negative, but the way to be sure is to mask. After that you can tweak the process if needed.

Looking good!

Have fun!

 

[JOHN McMURTRIE]

Thanks for the advise NedL, I love the idea of painting the Silver Nitrates so they spill under the tape in places. I will give that a go. I am concluding that the Rapid Fixer is way too harsh for this process. I have experienced a lot of darkening and reddening to the prints above. I think I got some bad advise about using the Rapid Fixer. The prints still look good but not as vibrant as above. Can someone confirm I will keep the brown/red/orange colour if I revert to Sodium Thiosulphate and what density change you experienced? I also may have to use a toner before the fix after all. I am actually quite enjoying this process of discovery and imagining Talbots frustration when he has exactly what he wanted but was unable to preserve it!

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Last night I prepared 3 sheets of paper mixing a 30ml 2g mix of Sodium Chloride + 1g of Geletine and re-used my previously mixed Silver Nitrate and citric acid solution. I made a box with coat hanger wire pushed through it to make shelves to house 3 pieces of paper and left them to dry. Today in the UK it was very cloudy which apparently is great for better contrast than a sunny day. It was also humid which is worth noting. I also ensured the negative's had a slightly better D-Max than my first attempt.
View attachment 179321


The first print of Slash I used a digital negative made from the original transparency. It is a shot I took a few years ago and knew this would work well in this medium. Print time was 10 minutes and I made sure I loaded the frame in safe light (I know it can be done in low light but a torch with a red filter on in the shed works for me). I also unloaded the frame in dark conditions and kept everything dark until 5 minutes into the fixing.
View attachment 179322
View attachment 179323
View attachment 179324

I also made a print of Ville Valo. Printing negative made from the original transparency.
View attachment 179326
View attachment 179327
View attachment 179329
View attachment 179328

I am really happy with the results. Especially the paper coating which is starting to look consistent. I have one small area that did not receive any salt or silver Nitrate which is odd as I checked thoroughly after each coating. On that same print (above) I have 2 black spots on the right (is this contamination from the previous fixing?). The contrast levels are excellent. Taking the paper out in safe light conditions stopped any fogging and the contrast is good (especially on the Ville print).

I also printed a view of Polruan on the river Fowey in Cornwall. This time I sensitised my paper all the way to the edge on both coatings. I think I could have given it a slightly longer exposure to burn in the sky. The tonal range is excellent.
View attachment 179331

All in all a great day Salt Printing. Will be interested to see how they look once fully dry and what discolouration occurs.

View attachment 179332

View attachment 179333

View attachment 179334

Nice work!

 

[Prof_Pixel]

Can someone confirm I will keep the brown/red/orange colour if I revert to Sodium challenge and what density change you experienced? I also may have to use a toner before the fix after all. I am actually quite enjoying this process of discovery and imagining Talbots frustration when he has exactly what he wanted but was unable to preserve it!

With salt printing, the image tone changes after EVERY step (including waxing). That's part of the challenge. BTW, the GEM process sequence includes the use of gold toner, and the image tone changes based on the extent of toning.

 

[JOHN McMURTRIE]

I think I will try gold-thiourea toning before fixing. Can I turn on the lights during this process? Just wondering how I gauge the amount of time needed for the toner if I can't see the change?

 

[removed account4]

beautiful work !
are your negatives transparency ( film ) or are they paper negatives you have waxed and printed through?

ive never heard of using gold-thiourea with salt prints but borax gold ..
and i think the borax/gold is done AFTER fixing, not before so it might be easier to know when enough is enough.

 

[NedL]

before fixing and only use incandescent or dim indirect light. They aren't terribly light sensitive after they've been washed, but you still need to be reasonably careful. Fluorescent lights or any direct daylight should be avoided.

 

[JOHN McMURTRIE]

They are transparency film negatives 10x8. I need to do some more research on toners then.

 

[removed account4]

They are transparency film negatives 10x8. I need to do some more research on toners then.

don't let my ignorance impact your project !
i just know from my own research (ive been planning to make salt prints for eons )
borax gold and selenium is what i have heard, nedL and cliveh know salt prints
and photogenic drawing they are wizards compared to my " just reading stuff and not doing stuff "

 

[NedL]

I know that people use gold thiourea toner w/ salt prints, but I've never tried it myself. Maybe someone will chime in who's done it.

 

[removed account4]

I know that people use gold thiourea toner w/ salt prints, but I've never tried it myself. Maybe someone will chime in who's done it.

thanks for correcting me ned !
i've only heard of tht stuff with regular / modern silver prints ..

 

[Herzeleid]

I am using gold-thiourea toners for salt prints. They are very popular with siderotypes but it has to be used a bit different with salt prints. (Albumen, aristotype and pop emulsions will act the same)
Borax or sodium bicarb alkaline gold toners, thiourea-gold toner are sulfide & gold toners. Salt prints must be fixed and washed thoroughly before toning with thiourea-gold toners, and after toning very brief fix is also required. If the print is not fixed before toning there is no guarantee that all the unexposed silver is removed, thiourea will stain areas with any silver left.
With vandyke, kallitype and argyrotypes the thiourea-gold toning is done prior to fixing.

These prints have considerable fog probably due to negative density problems, with thiourea-gold toners the fog will get worse.

 

[JOHN McMURTRIE]

Do you have an example I could see?

 

[Herzeleid]

I have some cell phone snapshots, not good quality scans.

 

[JOHN McMURTRIE]

GoldBorax looks ace!

 

[Herzeleid]

Depends on what you aim.
Gold-Borax gives reddish warm tones. Gold-Potassium Carbonate closest to original warm brown/sepia prints.
Gold-Bicarbonate is simple to use and similar to untoned salt prints with ammonium chloride.
All alkaline toners slightly bleach the highlights.

Clerc's Thiourea gives cool tones almost neutral, Lawless' Thiourea gives duo tones sometimes but hard to control (duo tones), warmer than Clerc's.
All thiourea toners give deeper dmax, and there is no bleach.
Kodak GP-1 is also another thiourea-gold toner, the tones are too bluish.

 

[pschwart]

Thanks for the advise NedL, I love the idea of painting the Silver Nitrates so they spill under the tape in places. I will give that a go. I am concluding that the Rapid Fixer is way too harsh for this process. I have experienced a lot of darkening and reddening to the prints above. I think I got some bad advise about using the Rapid Fixer. The prints still look good but not as vibrant as above. Can someone confirm I will keep the brown/red/orange colour if I revert to Sodium Thiosulphate and what density change you experienced? I also may have to use a toner before the fix after all. I am actually quite enjoying this process of discovery and imagining Talbots frustration when he has exactly what he wanted but was unable to preserve it!

My fixer is: 10% sodium thiosulfate with 0.2% sodium carbonate. An alkaline fix will help avoid image bleaching. You really do want to tone salt prints for longevity, but don't forget the salt bath after the initial rinse and before toning to remove the free soluble silver. I use about a tablespoon of kosher salt per 1500 ml water for a 1% solution. This can help prevent staining.