Yet another POP question

[mark]

This stuff seems to have one hell of a dry down factor. Is anyone else seeing this or did I screw up? My shadows were wide open when I took the thing out of the sink. Now every bit of the detail in the shadows is gone. The once glowing highs that were right on the mark at zone 7 are now, I would say zone five. This is a two stop dry down! That is a lot!

 

[Jorge]

This stuff seems to have one hell of a dry down factor. Is anyone else seeing this or did I screw up? My shadows were wide open when I took the thing out of the sink. Now every bit of the detail in the shadows is gone. The once glowing highs that were right on the mark at zone 7 are now, I would say zone five. This is a two stop dry down! That is a lot!

Generally there is a lot of dry down, far more than with "normal" papers. OTOH you might have your inspection light too bright. The fixing process is also very important with POP, this might be a problem too. Are you tonning before fixing or after? If you are tonning after fixing, this might be the cause as well.

Good luck.

 

[Ole]

This stuff seems to have one hell of a dry down factor. Is anyone else seeing this or did I screw up? My shadows were wide open when I took the thing out of the sink. Now every bit of the detail in the shadows is gone. The once glowing highs that were right on the mark at zone 7 are now, I would say zone five. This is a two stop dry down! That is a lot!

It is. That's how it is.. Do you tone? gold? Which toner? Before or after fixing? That, too, makes a lot of difference!

If the highlights are too dark, try bleaching in very dilute rapid fix (acid) - unless you have gold toned it already.

 

[mark]

I selenium tone after fixing. Never had this much dry down before. The only thing I changed this time was my exposure source. Instead of the sun I used a 1000 watt HID light. Things looked normal. before I fixed. I used the last of my fixer so it may have gone bad but it did not have the telltale green hue I have seen before. I will be trying again this weekend.

 

[Jorge]

I selenium tone after fixing. Never had this much dry down before. The only thing I changed this time was my exposure source. Instead of the sun I used a 1000 watt HID light. Things looked normal. before I fixed. I used the last of my fixer so it may have gone bad but it did not have the telltale green hue I have seen before. I will be trying again this weekend.

You really should tone before you fix, you might have some unfixed silver left that got fogged.

 

[mark]

You really should tone before you fix, you might have some unfixed silver left that got fogged.

All the lit says to gold tone before fixing and selenium tone after. I think the fix may have been bad or really misjudged the doneness of exposure.

We'll see Sunday when i get back to work and can play with the lamp. Thanks for the insight. If it weren't for it's finicky nature POP would be the most fun and most easy contact process.

 

[Jorge]

All the lit says to gold tone before fixing and selenium tone after. I think the fix may have been bad or really misjudged the doneness of exposure.

We'll see Sunday when i get back to work and can play with the lamp. Thanks for the insight. If it weren't for it's finicky nature POP would be the most fun and most easy contact process.

Dont expect POP to always come out the same, I think this is part of the fun. Good luck.

 

[Ole]

All the lit says to gold tone before fixing and selenium tone after. I think the fix may have been bad or really misjudged the doneness of exposure.

"All the lit" I have is from the days when POP was standard procedure, and not an alternative process at all.

None mention selenium toning, all mention gold. Some mention uranium, sulfide, vanadium, palladium and other toners.

All recommend gold toning before fixing as the best standard procedure. For more dramatic contrast/tone changes, gold toning after fixing or with a toning fixer.

The fixer is also very important, any small chang will make a visible difference. A weak "plain hypo" fix works great, raid fix bleaches highlights easily if you need to up the contrast a bit. But keep the concentration very low, or it's all gone...