Re: VDB nasty staining problem
Hi Sam, I don't know if that will work for David (maybe his/your environment/procedure is different than mine) but I had always done the first wash in citric acid (and a second wash in tap water) with Vandyke and never experienced David's problem when toning in gold/thiourea + I never used running water when processing. Regards, Loris. Quoting sam wang <stwang@bellsouth.net>: David, Let me venture a guess: the stain may be a result of how you used the citric acid "clearing bath". It's important to wash off the excess emulsion as the first step. When you soak the print in the "clearing bath" some of the excess silver nitrate could get imbedded in the paper instead of being washed off, and that would produce stain. So try skipping the citric acid bath and see if you still get stain. I never tried using citric acid, but when my students agitate exposed vandyke in a tray of water instead of rinsing the prints in running water, they got stain. That's without gold toning, but I suspect the toning is a separate issue. Please do report back if you find out. Good luck. Sam Wang
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