Seeking Advice on Printing Gelatin Silver Prints from Overexposed Wet Plate Collodion Negatives

D_Quinn · Jul 31, 2023

Has anyone used wet plate collodion negatives to make gelatin silver prints (Developing out process)?
I have tried printing ambrotype, which was slightly overexposed, onto gelatin silver paper, but while it captures some of the hard-to-see highlight details present in the ambrotype, the mid-tones to shadows become too dark. During printing on multigrade paper, I used a contrast filter of grade 1. I have read various sources stating that overexposed ambrotypes can be beautifully printed, but I can't figure out why it's not working for me. So, I'm wondering if it would work better if I used negatives that have more density, similar to regular negatives.
Any input will be highly appreciated.
Thanks.

koraks · Jul 31, 2023

You've evidently done a lot more wet plate than I ever did, but the collodion plates I did were generally rather low in contrast, even if overexposed. They usually printed fine on variable contrast paper, which I did a number of times, requiring fairly high grades (for properly exposed collodion ambrotypes) of 4-5. I'd expect overexposed ambrotypes to print well at low-ish grades; maybe 1-2. I never got much more transmissive density than that out of collodion; when I needed this, I would use a rehal bleach and redevelop in sepia toner, which boosted contrast pretty much over the moon. Plates would then be good for salt printing and would certainly be beyond the contrast range that would work for variable contrast silver gelatin. Are your plates just overexposed, and not intensified etc.?

So in short:

D_Quinn said:
I can't figure out why it's not working for me

I'm puzzled, too!

Anyway, if you have plates/negatives too high in contrast for silver gelatin, you could try pre-flashing the paper to compress the tonal range. It takes a test strip or two to get the right amount of preflash exposure, but it's relatively straightforward.

D_Quinn · Jul 31, 2023

Hi Koraks,

Thank you for your response. This is just an example (one that turned out quite well). I used the ambrotype to print the gelatin silver Print above. By the way, I used a filter of 2.5 for this print. The blacks in the gelatin silver print do not appear as deep in this photograph as they are in real. If I try to make these blacks even darker, the mid-tones and highlights also become much darker, resulting in an overall very dark photo. In other photos, when I try to make the blacks richer in the shadows, they become extremely dark. For these reasons, I thought that creating a wet plate negative with more mid-tones and a flatter appearance would allow me to achieve smoother tones. What kind of print do you think the redeveloped wet plate negative will produce?

koraks · Jul 31, 2023

My apologies, I totally misread your problem initially - not your fault, absolutely mine!

D_Quinn said:
If I try to make these blacks even darker, the mid-tones and highlights also become much darker, resulting in an overall very dark photo.

Basically what you've got is a lack of contrast - at least for the intended print medium; silver gelatin paper. There's a number of intensification approaches/formulas that can be used to 'beef up' a collodion negative. I used copper sulfate + potassium bromide to bleach out the entire image and then redevelop in thiourea + sodium hydroxide to obtain more density, at least in the blue and UV channel. If you replace the thiourea developer with a silver nitrate + nitric acid 'redeveloper', you'll get a massive density boost and probably far more than you need. I'd try the thiourea/sepia approach first. The drawback of course is that such approaches are generally irreversible, so perhaps shoot some test plates to play with before committing a more interesting one.

D_Quinn said:
What kind of print do you think the redeveloped wet plate negative will produce?

Hard to tell, but in general I got what you'd expect on my tries with this approach: something very similar to an ambrotype in terms of tonal rendering, but on paper - so with an inherently different surface, contrast impression etc.

Btw, collodion negatives for carbon transfer are pretty much the only temptation for me right now to remotely consider reinstating my wet plate stuff. Which is not to be derogatory about wet plate; in fact the opposite: those collodion negatives were really, really nice (when they came out well) to print from.

D_Quinn · Aug 1, 2023

koraks said:
My apologies, I totally misread your problem initially - not your fault, absolutely mine!

Basically what you've got is a lack of contrast - at least for the intended print medium; silver gelatin paper. There's a number of intensification approaches/formulas that can be used to 'beef up' a collodion negative. I used copper sulfate + potassium bromide to bleach out the entire image and then redevelop in thiourea + sodium hydroxide to obtain more density, at least in the blue and UV channel. If you replace the thiourea developer with a silver nitrate + nitric acid 'redeveloper', you'll get a massive density boost and probably far more than you need. I'd try the thiourea/sepia approach first. The drawback of course is that such approaches are generally irreversible, so perhaps shoot some test plates to play with before committing a more interesting one.

Hard to tell, but in general I got what you'd expect on my tries with this approach: something very similar to an ambrotype in terms of tonal rendering, but on paper - so with an inherently different surface, contrast impression etc.

Btw, collodion negatives for carbon transfer are pretty much the only temptation for me right now to remotely consider reinstating my wet plate stuff. Which is not to be derogatory about wet plate; in fact the opposite: those collodion negatives were really, really nice (when they came out well) to print from.

Thank you for all the useful information. I really appreciate it! I was thinking about redeveloping my plates to get the density with the method introduced by Quinn Jacobson.

Re-halogenation Solution:
Diluted Iodine (dilute with DH2O about 50/50)
Redeveloping Solution:
4 g pyrogallic acid (developer)
8 g citric acid (restrainer)
1000 ml Distilled or Deionized water

Do you have any thoughts on this methodology?

I am interested in what you suggested, the thiourea/sepia approach which I have never heard of. Do you mean that I tone the plate with the thiourea/sepia toner? If that is the case, do I tone the plate right after fixing it when the plate is still moist?

Thank you.

koraks · Aug 1, 2023

D_Quinn said:
Do you have any thoughts on this methodology?

I tried things along those lines. I found the results lackluster, bleaching was slow, lots of unevenness and fog. I guess I just wasn't very good at it and hence, I migrated to an approach that's less demanding in terms of technique.

D_Quinn said:
Do you mean that I tone the plate with the thiourea/sepia toner?

Basically, yes. Rehal-bleach first (ferricyainde + bromide is fine, I used copper sulfate + bromide mostly), then redeveop in thiourea sepia.

D_Quinn said:
do I tone the plate right after fixing it when the plate is still moist?

I'm sorry, I can't remember if I also did this on plates I dried first. As I recall I mostly went straight from fixing and washing (!!!) to bleach & redevelop.

D_Quinn · Aug 1, 2023

koraks said:
I tried things along those lines. I found the results lackluster, bleaching was slow, lots of unevenness and fog. I guess I just wasn't very good at it and hence, I migrated to an approach that's less demanding in terms of technique.

Basically, yes. Rehal-bleach first (ferricyainde + bromide is fine, I used copper sulfate + bromide mostly), then redeveop in thiourea sepia.

I'm sorry, I can't remember if I also did this on plates I dried first. As I recall I mostly went straight from fixing and washing (!!!) to bleach & redevelop.

D_Quinn · Aug 1, 2023

Thank you. I see that I need to bleach it before toning. Do you know any websites or threads that give me the formula for Rehal-bleach and toner? Sorry, but I know nothing about this method. Is bromide that you suggest potassium bromide, I assume?
Also, do I need to expose the plate to UV before bleaching?

koraks · Aug 1, 2023

D_Quinn said:
I see that I need to bleach it before toning.

Yes. You could also try a direct sulfur toner, but it'll be slow, smelly and probably won't gain you much density.

D_Quinn said:
Is bromide that you suggest potassium bromide, I assume?

Yes, absolutely. Table salt would work, too, btw. But potassium bromide is a safe bet. Copper sulfate is also fairly easy to get hold of. Some people in the US use tree root killer which apparently is copper sulfate.
The ratios aren't very critical. I always kept a jar (300ml or so) at hand that I initially mixed a teaspoon of both ingredients into. With use, the solution turns from a bright blue to a more pale blue and when it got slow, I would add a little copper sulfate and/or potassium bromide.

I don't remember where I read the 'trick' of the copper bleach. If you google for "collodion negative copper sulfate" you'll find plenty of hits. Root around a bit and you'll see it's not complicated.

The procedure is really simple: just mix the copper sulfate bleach as outlined above. After fixing and thoroughly washing your collodion negative, put it in a tray and pour the bleach onto it. Agitate until the image turns bright white throughout. This usually takes (much) less than a minute. Then wash the plate again.

If you don't want to use a copper sulfate bleach, try a regular ferricyanide bleach - the kind that's sold as part of odorless sepia toner kits etc. It'll be slower than the copper sulfate, but should work just as well.

What you now have is basically a plate with your image on it, with the image consisting of silver bromide (or silver chloride if you used table salt instead of potassium bromide) - i.e. a silver halide image. This image can now be redeveloped. It doesn't require re-exposure to UV light; I've always just done the bleaching and washing in normal room light and that seemed to work just fine. You could chuck the plate (in its tray) underneath a UV light source if you want, for a minute or two. It won't hurt.

This silver halide image gives you some options of how you want to re-develop it. Obvious choices are:

Thiourea sepia redevelopment. This will give a modest UV-density gain. Any odorless sepia toner (bath B) will work. These toners are a small amount of thiourea and a small amount of sodium hydroxide in water.
Redevelopment with any paper or film developer of your choice, including tanning/staining developers. This in principle won't give you much of a density boost, but a staining developer will give some extra UV density due to the stain. However, it'll also make the emulsion come off the plate fairly easily (due to the tanning action, it contracts and it can dislodge from the plate/flake off). Due to the limited density gain, I never used this apart from a few experiments.
Intensification by washing the plate in a weak silver nitrate solution. This gives a dramatic contrast boost. I added a bit of nitric acid to this to prevent fog and to keep the silver nitrate in solution even if it contaminated a bit with halides. Basically, a dilute version of your collodion silver bath! The concentration of the bath isn't critical. I used something around 1% and that was plenty strong enough.

After treatment, wash thoroughly. If you do silver intensification, you can actually repeat the process as many times as you want to build massive amounts of density on your plate. I've done it up to 3 times or so on very underexposed plates, turning them into absolutely bulletproof negatives (with little shadow detail). This worked really great for salted paper prints and it should work magnificently for carbon transfer as well - I think Borut Peterlin uses this method as well or at least has used it for some time. Don't quote me on that, though.

A key point is that concentrations of the chemicals really isn't very critical at all in either the bleach or the redevelopment process. This is really something where a dash of this and half a teaspoon of that will work just fine.

Have fun with it; this is a really powerful tool if you're into the combination of wet plate photography and alt. process printing.

D_Quinn · Aug 1, 2023

Thank you very much for all the details. This helps me a lot! I'll try to do some experiments with it!

koraks · Aug 1, 2023

Cool, let me know how it works out!

grain elevator · Aug 1, 2023

Wait a second, why are you printing at grade 1 if contrast is too low? Try harder grades before moving on bleaching/redeveloping!

D_Quinn · Aug 1, 2023

grain elevator said:
Wait a second, why are you printing at grade 1 if contrast is too low? Try harder grades before moving on bleaching/redeveloping!

Yes, I will try and see how it looks with higher-grade filters first and also experiment with the bleaching/redeveloping methods. Thank you!

D_Quinn · Aug 8, 2023

Hi koraks,
May I ask further questions about what you suggested?

>Basically, yes. Rehal-bleach first (ferricyainde + bromide is fine, I used copper sulfate + bromide mostly), then redevelop in thiourea sepia.

About ferricyainde, there is a product called Potassium Ferricyanide. If I use this product, do I still need to add Potassium Bromide?
I think this product is something similar to a farmer’s reducer.

>Intensification by washing the plate in a weak silver nitrate solution. This gives a dramatic contrast boost. I added a bit of nitric acid to this to prevent fog and to keep the silver nitrate in solution even if it contaminated a bit with halides. Basically, a dilute version of your collodion silver bath! The concentration of the bath isn't critical. I used something around 1% and that was plenty strong enough.

I found it difficult to get thiourea sepia here in Japan unfortunately, so I am thinking of experimenting with the third option you suggested, intensification by washing the plate in a weak silver nitrate solution.
To prepare a 200ml solution of weak silver nitrate, I need to dissolve 2 grams of silver nitrate in 200ml of distilled water. Am I right?

Could I reuse this silver nitrate solution for future use?

koraks · Aug 8, 2023

D_Quinn said:
About ferricyainde, there is a product called Potassium Ferricyanide. If I use this product, do I still need to add Potassium Bromide?

Yes.

D_Quinn said:
To prepare a 200ml solution of weak silver nitrate, I need to dissolve 2 grams of silver nitrate in 200ml of distilled water. Am I right?

Yes, that should do!

D_Quinn said:
Could I reuse this silver nitrate solution for future use?

Yes; some of the silver will be consumed every time you use it, but it's not all that much. Once the intensification process gets too slow to your taste, add a little silver.

Be sure to use distilled water for the silver solution!

D_Quinn · Aug 8, 2023

Thank you for the answers. I really appreciate your kindness.

>The ratios aren't very critical. I always kept a jar (300ml or so) at hand that I initially mixed a teaspoon of both ingredients into. With use, the solution turns from a bright blue to a more pale blue and when it got slow, I would add a little copper sulfate and/or potassium bromide.

As a starting point, should the below ratios work?
4gram Potassium Ferricyanide
4gram Potassium Bromide
300ml distilled water
I presume the bleach with Potassium Ferricyanide +Potassium Bromide takes longer than with Copper Sulfate + Potassium Bromide.

Out of curiosity,
I saw a video of wet plate negative copper intensification made by Giorgio Bordin. As soon as he poured a solution of Copper Sulfate + Bromide on the negative in the black tray, the image brightened, especially mid-tones and highlights (the image attached). I found this appearance quite impressive. Would it be possible not to redevelop it but to let it dry and make it use as a final work, something like a bright ambrotype piece, you think? Or doesn't this appearance last?

Thank you.

koraks · Aug 8, 2023

D_Quinn said:
Thank you for the answers. I really appreciate your kindness.

You're welcome and I appreciate the comment

D_Quinn said:
As a starting point, should the below ratios work?
4gram Potassium Ferricyanide
4gram Potassium Bromide
300ml distilled water
I presume the bleach with Potassium Ferricyanide +Potassium Bromide takes longer than with Copper Sulfate + Potassium Bromide.

Yes, that sounds like a good start. If you find the bleach too slow, feel free to add more potassium ferricyanide and/or potassium bromide.

D_Quinn said:
As soon as he poured a solution of Copper Sulfate + Bromide on the negative in the black tray, the image brightened, especially mid-tones and highlights (the image attached).

Yes, that is correct. Upon bleaching, what you get is basically a white/slightly yellow image. It works with film, too!

D_Quinn said:
Would it be possible not to redevelop it but to let it dry and make it use as a final work, something like a bright ambrotype piece, you think? Or doesn't this appearance last?

That's, alas, the issue - the silver will over time 'print out' and darken. You might be able to preserve the image, as is, for some time by limiting its exposure to UV light.
One other issue is that even the slightest degree of development will already turn the image into a brown one; the white appearance disappears virtually instantly as you start redeveloping it. Give it a try; you'll see.

D_Quinn · Aug 9, 2023

Thank you very much for the comments.

>That's, alas, the issue - the silver will over time 'print out' and darken. You might be able to >preserve the image, as is, for some time by limiting its exposure to UV light.

Hmm. That's a shame.
Would something like Fuji Ag Guard work to protect from tarnishing after the negative has bleached and dried (before the redevelopment) to preserve the brightness? Your insight?

Nicholas Lindan · Aug 9, 2023

YMMV - I haven't tried this with the above technique but have used it for Lumen prints - prints made with a few hours exposure to the sun and no development. These are usually shadowgrams of flowers & such. Example: https://www.photrio.com/forum/media/rhododendron-blossom-lumen-print.33407/

The image can probably be preserved with immersion in B&W stabilizer - the stuff used in rapid print processors back in the 60's-90's.

Water 750ml
Ammonium thiocyanate 200g
Sodium metabisulfite 70g
Acetic acid (5%) 340ml (I can't find the 28% figure but it's easy enough to work out)
Water to 1000ml

Dilute 1:4 for use

Also available ready mixed from Arista/Freestyle: https://www.freestylephoto.com/1094...hromo-Stabilizer-for-Chromoskedasic-Sabattier

I fix after stabilization - the prints seem to be as permanent as any other B&W print.

koraks · Aug 9, 2023

D_Quinn said:
Would something like Fuji Ag Guard work to protect from tarnishing after the negative has bleached and dried (before the redevelopment) to preserve the brightness? Your insight?

I doubt it, but see how @Nicholas Lindan 's idea pans out!

D_Quinn · Aug 9, 2023

Thanks, Nicholas and koraks!
Let's see how it turns out.

D_Quinn · Aug 15, 2023

koraks,

I did some Intensification tests following your advice. I am quite happy with how they turned out. Thank you.

I have a few questions, and if you know, could you give me your thoughts? For the bleaching step, I used, as I mentioned previously, potassium ferricyanide + potassium bromide, and for the redevelopment, I used a 2% silver nitrate solution.

In the bleaching step, the image did not become as bright as the image I attached in my previous post, but the density from mid-tones to highlights increased, making the positive image appear brighter after the silver nitrate step.

After immersing the plate in the silver nitrate solution, I only rinsed it under running water for 20 minutes without fix. If I apply varnish, do you think that I could maintain this bright positive, as an ambrotype, without it turning black?

Also, even with bleaching alone (before putting in the silver nitrate solution), the plate became a bit brighter. In this state, if I apply varnish (after washing and drying), would the image still turn black? Or should I need to redevelop the plate in the silver nitrate solution?

My original question was about printing on gelatin silver prints but now I am asking about making bright positives (ambrotypes).

Anyways I have no knowledge of chemistry (although I know I need to study), so I'm sorry if this sound silly.

koraks · Aug 15, 2023

It's great to hear your initial experiments are encouraging - nice!

D_Quinn said:
If I apply varnish, do you think that I could maintain this bright positive, as an ambrotype, without it turning black?

I really don't know, to be honest. I'd give it a try and place the varnished plate into bright UV (direct sunlight) for a few days or so, if possible. See if there's any difference after that time. That still doesn't give a firm guarantee for the longer term, but it's at least an indication.

D_Quinn said:
In this state, if I apply varnish (after washing and drying), would the image still turn black?

I expect that the silver will 'print out' over time. Maybe if the grains are small enough they'll remain light in color. I don't know. The same advice as above applies; see what happens upon prolonged exposure to intense UV light.

D_Quinn said:
My original question was about printing on gelatin silver prints but now I am asking about making bright positives (ambrotypes).

Sometimes, darkroom experiments take us into new and unanticipated directions - that's a great thing!

D_Quinn said:
I'm sorry if this sound silly.

Absolutely not.

I'm going to alert @nmp; maybe he knows a thing or two about this. My knowledge is (evidently) insufficient to properly you help you with this!

D_Quinn · Aug 15, 2023

Thanks so much koraks!
I'll partially varnish the plates and place them under the sun and see how they react.

nmp · Aug 16, 2023

koraks said:
I'm going to alert @nmp; maybe he knows a thing or two about this. My knowledge is (evidently) insufficient to properly you help you with this!

I was following this thread at a distance since I have no working knowledge of these plate processes. So I have not read through all the details. Hopefully I am not completely off the mark.

It seems the last issue that the OP is wondering about is whether the plate after the intensification treatment using silver nitrate (I have a question on that itself, but I will bring it up later) will be stable in the ambient. I guess as long as there is residual silver halide, it will continue to convert to silver on exposure to UV and darken the image, but only to the extent that there was silver in the first place before bleaching and re-halogenation. So the clear areas should remain clear. If the silver nitrate treatment is carried out to completion, i.e. there is no un-reduced halide left (can that be done, I am not sure) then nothing should happen. Provided of course that all silver nitrate has been washed off from the plate in the end.

(This vaguely reminds me that we discussed a similar issue some time back in the context of indirect toning - whether fixing was required afterwards.)

Now the question about silver nitrate intensification. So you start with silver which is then converted to silver halide. Now you add silver nitrate. This is similar to salted paper where silver halide and silver nitrate co-exists on the paper (actually an early process of Talbot used this technique.) But in order to make silver, one has to expose this to UV. Is that how the intensification works in this case? Plate is treated with silver nitrate and left out in the Sun allowing silver formation in proportion to the halide concentration - is that correct? Under safelight conditions, otherwise, nothing would happen, unless by adding a reducing agent like gallic acid (a la calotypes) to effectuate physical development.

Just some thoughts...

:Niranjan

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