salt prints using dry plates

removed account4 · Apr 5, 2015

this question is for the fine folks who are using dry plates ...
while i have coated and printed them and enlarged them for a long time,
i have never made salt prints with them ... i know
albument prints were traditionally made with glass negatives, would i have
trouble with a full scale dry plate negative for a salt print, or would it have to be too contrasty ..

thanks for your help!
john

dwross · Apr 5, 2015

Hi John,

Do you mean would the dry plates have to be more contrasty than the medium allows, or, whether or not you can use 'normal' plates you already have?

An albumen print is essentially a salt print. Salt prints are being printed today from wet plates. And, a dry plate can be made to just about any contrast range a piece of film can. I haven't made a salt print with a dry plate, but I can't imagine any reason it won't be a lovely match. Bonus: salt prints are supposedly the most archival prints that can be made, even better than platinum. Hope you try it soon!

pdeeh · Apr 5, 2015

dwross said:
salt prints are supposedly the most archival prints that can be made, even better than platinum.

really?

I find that a bit hard to believe ... what would be the supporting rationale ?

dwross · Apr 5, 2015

I don't know. It was news to me, too, back in September when Mark Osterman was the keynote speaker at an Alt Process symposium I attended. The salt prints in the GEH archives are holding up the best of all the processes. Being a great silver gelatin booster and a Pt/Pd print collector, I think any differences from process alone pale to the differences produced by storage conditions, but I seem to be in guessing mode today, so that is strictly my opinion/gut feeling.

pschwart · Apr 5, 2015

Fixing salt prints was tricky business then and it still is. Classical salt prints are usually made on thin writing paper. In my experience, prints made on much heavier watercolor stocks don't do as well as prints on single-ply Strathmore 500, so maybe this is a significant factor in salt print survival. If you are looking for archival, make carbon transfers!

dwross · Apr 5, 2015

I don't know. It was news to me, too, back in September when Mark Osterman was the keynote speaker at an Alt Process symposium I attended. The salt prints in the GEH archives are holding up the best of all the processes. Being a great silver gelatin booster and a Pt/Pd print collector, I think any differences from process alone pale to the differences produced by storage conditions, but I seem to be in guessing mode today, so that is strictly my opinion/gut feeling.

dwross · Apr 5, 2015

pschwart said:
Fixing salt prints was tricky business then and it still is. Classical salt prints are usually made on thin writing paper. In my experience, prints made on much heavier watercolor stocks don't do as well as prints on single-ply Strathmore 500, so maybe this is a significant factor in salt print survival. If you are looking for archival, make carbon transfers!

That's an excellent point. Handling at every step is key, whatever the process. Albumen is sometimes considered a relatively short half life process, but there some very old ones in perfect condition, implying that they were fixed and washed properly and not just the product of a sloppy commercial processing mill.

Herzeleid · Apr 5, 2015

I recently had experience with a historical glass negative and printing it with various processes. Glass negatives' tonal range is not as wide as salt or albumen.

Albumen and salt prints are very very similar things, only the colloid layer is different. So they both have similar tonal range, usually around 9 stops, which is way beyond the glass negatives.
So it is a good idea to to increase the contrast of the paper before printing. Fuming with ammonia, adding dichromates to silver solution or increasing the amount of sodium citrate in the gelatin increases the contrast. Intensifying the negatives can do the similar thing but there is no need to risk them if they are antiques.

Gold toned and waxed salt prints would be as permanent as pt/pd imo.

MDR · Apr 5, 2015

Untoned salt prints are not very archival, gold or platinum toned salted paper prints on the other hand have superb archival qualities. The problem with platinum prints is the iron which is the actual light sensitive component of the process and is less stable than silver. The iron will "rust" and attack the print after some time especially under not so great keeping conditions. Albumen prints and salted paper prints were toned 90% of the time. Some of the earliest salted paper prints in existence weren't even fixed but stabilized with salt and are untoned. The closest modern paper to the original paper used for salt and albumen prints is Canson Crob d'art.

As a personal note the salted paper process is still one of the most beautiful processes, it has a huge tonal range and a very delicate look that is unmatched by any other alt. process imo. Salted paper prints from Dryplates work very well, Kevin Klein has posted some examples of his dryplates formula printed on albumen paper on the lightfarm site (http://thelightfarm.com/Map/DryPlate/Recipes2/DryPlatePart3.htm). Albumen paper is sharper since the emulsion doesn't sink into the paper fibers and glossy but the contrast range is very close to the salted paper process. Another option if you want slightly sharper but still matt prints is the matt albumen process. Zoe Zimmerman has a great formula and makes beautiful prints. The formula can be found in Christopher James' book.

removed account4 · Apr 5, 2015

thank you for all your replies.

denise i wasn't talking about dry plates i already have
a lot of them are positive plates ( projected onto or as a interpolative (instead of an internegative)
but of new ones i hope to make ... im kind of doing a 2 pronged approach glass camera plates or projected onto and chemically reversed
and/or both thin paper negatives with hand coated paper negatives, or thin photostatic negatives or something similar ( that i can't speak of here )
but i'm still straightening out kinks in my processes ...
i have a few plans in the months to come ... we'll see...

thanks again all your helps !
john

dwross · Apr 6, 2015

Hi Herzeleid,
Is it possible that the glass negative you were working with was collodion rather than gelatin?

Hi John,
Will you please get at it! I can hardly wait to see what you come up with. Dry plate photography needs some serious (or not-so-serious!) shaking up. All of the images I see coming out of new dry plate photographers, including my own, are very traditional. Obviously, I don't see anything wrong with that, but before all the creative boundaries are bumped up against, we won't see more young artists using dry plate.

Herzeleid · Apr 6, 2015

dwross said:
Hi Herzeleid,
Is it possible that the glass negative you were working with was collodion rather than gelatin?

Hello dwross,
I am certain that they were gelatin. I have experience with both materials on paper and glass.

removed account4 · Apr 6, 2015

hi densie

sorry for being at a snail's pace
i'll have something to show for all my
slowness in a little while ...

john

NedL · Apr 6, 2015

MDR said:
... The closest modern paper to the original paper used for salt and albumen prints is Canson Crob d'art....

As a personal note the salted paper process is still one of the most beautiful processes, it has a huge tonal range and a very delicate look... that is unmatched by any other alt. process imo. Salted paper prints from Dryplates work very well, Kevin Klein has posted some examples of his dryplates formula printed on albumen paper on the lightfarm site (http://thelightfarm.com/Map/DryPlate/Recipes2/DryPlatePart3.htm). .....

For U.S. apehuggers, supposedly Universal Sketch is the same as Crob d'art, and it does work for salt printing, but the print will begin to spontaneously fog sooner on that paper than on some unbuffered papers and I suspect it has incorporated alkali ( so you don't want to let it sit more than 6 or 8 hours after coating, or make a print that will take more than about 14 hours to expose ) It has a sort of "pebbly" surface texture and I think it works better for large prints than small ones. In my opinion, the surface texture can add to a larger print but becomes too distracting from print details in smaller prints. The color is a sort of eggshell white, which is nice for some prints but I think whether it looks good depends on now you plan to tone.

I agree about the delicacy and especially in the highlights. If/when I ever try dry plate, I'll certainly try salt prints w/ them. I was thinking of it when I was reading Kevin's recipe on the lightfarm site too. I saw those albumen print examples but it didn't even occur to me that they show the recipe is well-tuned to salt.

Yeah: go for it John!

pschwart · Apr 6, 2015

Try Strathmore 500 single-ply Bristol. I believe it's also buffered and I wouldn't call it bright white, but it comes in plate and vellum finishes and it's 100% cotton. I have made nice salt prints on Strathmore 500. Crob'Art may be fine for workshops, but I want cotton for my finished prints. And I totally agree -- too much texture can easily overwhelm smaller prints

NedL · Apr 6, 2015

I'll order some Strathmore to try... I'm building up a collection of different papers to try, which is fun. A neat thing about salt prints is that every paper looks different with every toner and every salting recipe. The variations are endless, and it's fun to explore them and find out what you like. You will end up with what you personally and uniquely like almost inevitably!

I should have mentioned in my post that for me Universal Sketch fogged right away unless I added citric acid to the silver. I have a series of tests here that show fog until the concentration of CA reached about 4 or 5%. So now when I use it, I put 0.5% CA in the salting solution, and 6% CA in the silver nitrate solution. And even then it will fog if it sits around too long or the printing takes too long... but if you coat in the morning and finish the print the same day it will probably be fine.

Jim Noel · Apr 6, 2015

NedL said:
For U.S. apehuggers, supposedly Universal Sketch is the same as Crob d'art, and it does work for salt printing, but the print will begin to spontaneously fog sooner on that paper than on some unbuffered papers and I suspect it has incorporated alkali ( so you don't want to let it sit more than 6 or 8 hours after coating, or make a print that will take more than about 14 hours to expose ) It has a sort of "pebbly" surface texture and I think it works better for large prints than small ones. In my opinion, the surface texture can add to a larger print but becomes too distracting from print details in smaller prints. The color is a sort of eggshell white, which is nice for some prints but I think whether it looks good depends on now you plan to tone.

I agree about the delicacy and especially in the highlights. If/when I ever try dry plate, I'll certainly try salt prints w/ them. I was thinking of it when I was reading Kevin's recipe on the lightfarm site too. I saw those albumen print examples but it didn't even occur to me that they show the recipe is well-tuned to salt.

Yeah: go for it John!

My paper of choice is Southworth 100% Cotton Fiber Resume'. It is a 24 lb paper which holds up well to the wet time required for salt prints. I believe it is un-buffered, or at most lightly buffered as it has always worked beautifully with the process.

NedL · Apr 6, 2015

Jim Noel said:
My paper of choice is Southworth 100% Cotton Fiber Resume'. It is a 24 lb paper which holds up well to the wet time required for salt prints. I believe it is un-buffered, or at most lightly buffered as it has always worked beautifully with the process.

Jim I'll add that one to my list too!

I know you have used 100% linen papers too, and I've tried to find some... but all of the linen papers I've found so far have very heavy texture, looking almost like cloth with parallel lines. I think Ruscomb Mills makes a linen paper that has a smooth surface called Chateau vellum, that I'd like to try sometime. I'd like to try a linen paper.

MDR · Apr 6, 2015

Tests by Mark Osterman have shown that despite claims to the contrary Universal Sketch is not crob d'art it isn't even close. Unfortunately the paper is very hard to get outside of France. I sometimes use thin washi paper which is difficult to handle while wet but fits the process quiet well. Heinrich Kühn used water soluble adhesives to bond washi paper, which he used to make platinum and gumprints, to a thicker paper.

pschwart · Apr 6, 2015

Clearprint vellum is 100% cotton and also works well for salt printing. View prints with a backing sheet as it is translucent.

removed account4 · Apr 6, 2015

i have sheets of washi and other japanese papers.
been told they are ph neutral ( not acid free with a buffer )
so ... we'll see ...
i appreciate your suggestions, nudging, and helps !

Herzeleid · Apr 7, 2015

Interesting...Paper buffer never been a problem for me. I even coated thick watercolor paper without gelatin. As long as you put enough citric acid or another acid to prevent spontaneous darkening it works. I am now using %0,5 gelatin for salting regardless of the paper.

If the japanese paper is very absorbent, coating it or immersing it into a solution of with %1 - 2 gelatin makes it quite easy to work with.

salt prints using dry plates

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