Updated D'Augustine/Chiba Method for Dichromate Free Casein Prints

[Heather D'Augustine]

Hi,
I am very pleased to share that I have completed work on both the continuous tone and half-tone versions of the above referenced method. The half-tone method has been improved and updated as a result of my work on the continuous tone method.

Here's the link:
https://www.heatherdaugustine.com/

Take care out there!
Heather

 

[revdoc]

Thanks, Heather! I've been checking your site regularly for this update, and will read it with interest.

 

[nmp]

Very impressive....amazing amount of specificity and detail. Much thanks for freely sharing your hard-leaned knowledge. I am not an immediate customer for multi-layer color printing but thought of having to use dichromate will not deter me in the future, thanks to this alternative.

:Niranjan.

 

[Heather D'Augustine]

Niranjan - Thank you for your very kind words. It is my pleasure. I'm so grateful that it worked out in the end. It is a joy for me to share it. I also know what experimenters alt-process people can be (I am one myself), so I felt it was important to communicate as much as possible of what I learned along the way to help avoid problems with off-roading and help with successful outcomes.

Revdoc - I'm sorry for the wait! I discovered the shorter exposure times that come with using acrylic pigments in the home stretch and had to reorganize, reformulate and reprint just as I was about to publish the watercolor pigment version. I won't feel like this project is successful until I see OTHER people's prints, so it's been really important to me to take my time and give thorough instructions because the parameters that make this process work a considerably narrower than when using dichromate. Thanks for hanging in!

 

[aldus_manutius]

I'm having trouble finding janitorial ammonia here — is it possible to use household strength ammonia? I know in your instructions, you suggest against. Thanks!

 

[fgorga]

I'm having trouble finding janitorial ammonia here — is it possible to use household strength ammonia? I know in your instructions, you suggest against. Thanks!

Dennis,

This is a response from a chemist's point of view. I have not yet tried Heather's wonderful process... it's on my to do list though! Thus, I am not familiar with the details therein.

Here in the US, anyway, household ammonia is about a 5% solution. Janitorial ammonia runs about 10%.

Thus, in principle, one could use household ammonia at twice the volume of janitorial ammonia and reduce the volume of water used somewhere else in the recipe by half of the volume of household ammonia that you use. In the end the final concentration of ammonia would be the same in both cases.

Maybe, a concrete, but hypothetical example will help. Let us say that you have a recipe tha calls for 20 mL of janitorial ammonia plus 500 mL of water among many other ingredients. You could use 40 mL of household ammonia and 480 mL of water and keep everything else the same. The final solution would have exactly the same concentrations of all components.

Do pay attention to the details of the household ammonia you purchase. Some brands have detergents added. You want one that is often labeled "pure" , which from a chemist's point of view is not true but it seems to be the marketing way of saying "no detergent added".

Hope this helps!

By the way... did you once work at BSC (now BSU)? I am now retired but was once on the faculty there... in the chemistry department?