The challenge with Salt Printing

D_Quinn · Jan 24, 2025

Thanks, koraks!
That makes sense. Let's see how it goes

Lemmythink · Feb 16, 2025

retina_restoration said:
I use the Gold/thiocyanate toner for Salt and Kallitype prints. It's the same recipe as what B&S sells:

A: 500ml Ammonium Thiocyanate solution 2%
B: 500ml Gold Chloride solution 0.2%

I buy the chemicals from ArtCraft and make the stock solution myself. To make a working solution, you add 5ml of EACH Part A and Part B per 100ml of working solution. (For toning an 8X10 image on 11X14 paper, 100 ml of working solution is sufficient, but you must use a flat bottomed tray to make that small volume work.)

For printing in the summer, I work with sunlight (shade, facing open north sky), but in the winter I use a bank of LED lights, so what you have in mind should work just fine. You will have to experiment with distance and exposure times to determine what is correct for your equipment. Do test strips to start with.

VERY IMPORTANT: as Koraks has said, you need to engineer your negatives to have extra contrast and high value density to work for Salted Paper printmaking. I highly recommend that you read Ellie Young's paper on Salted Paper printmaking, as it specifically - and in great detail - addresses the proper technique for making an in-camera negative with the right density and contrast for the process.

What if you have negs that were not made in camera for salt printing, but you wanted to use them? I don't know lots about the process but might there be darkroom methods of intensifying the image that people use? I was wondering about contact printing negative/positives on paper with a different contrast to the point the densities are correct. Then use the paper negative as a the final 'film' or using positives contact to ortho film? I know you can intensify negs but looks like not enough.

retina_restoration · Feb 16, 2025

Lemmythink said:
What if you have negs that were not made in camera for salt printing, but you wanted to use them? I don't know lots about the process but might there be darkroom methods of intensifying the image that people use? I was wondering about contact printing negative/positives on paper with a different contrast to the point the densities are correct. Then use the paper negative as a the final 'film' or using positives contact to ortho film? I know you can intensify negs but looks like not enough.

Some films can be intensified enough to be suitable for salt printing. I know - I experimented with this a few years ago. I used the Copper sulfate bleach + silver nitrate process intended for wet plate negative intensification, on films like FP4+ and Delta 100. It worked well with FP4 but less well with Delta 100, which took several minutes of bleaching to have any effect. It was much more workable with FP4+. In fact, it was easy to bleach too much and end up with a negative that had way too much density in the highlights, so you have to experiment with this to find a workable process.

Using a paper negative for salt printing would be very difficult and the prints unsatisfying, given the paper density.

koraks · Feb 16, 2025

Lemmythink said:
might there be darkroom methods of intensifying the image that people use?

Yes, I routinely use dichromate intensifier on in-camera negatives. The process works with somewhat less problematic permanganate as well.

Extend your d… – Chromium intensifier for silver gelatin negatives – Koraks tinkers

tinker.koraks.nl

You can also do a two-step process using an interpositive as you describe, or even create a direct duplicate negative using reversal processing. I would not recommend a paper negative to print from as the exposure times will be prohibitively slow (many hours).

Tina Kino · May 29, 2025

koraks said:
For a very brief time, I tried my hand at YouTube videos; I ended up making only a handful, but one happens to be about salt prints:

..thank you very much for sharing this!

The challenge with Salt Printing

D_Quinn

Lemmythink

retina_restoration

koraks

Moderator

Extend your d… – Chromium intensifier for silver gelatin negatives – Koraks tinkers

Tina Kino

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