RE: VDB
On Mon, 5 Nov 2007, Sandy King wrote: In general it is best practice to tone as soon as possible, i.e. right after the first wash in water. In fact, even protracted first water bath can reduce the silver image if too long. Too long for me is more than a minute.There are so many variables involved that it's probably futile to generalize, but for what it's worth I note, Sandy, that this was not my experience. In fact I had been doing (and teaching) the VDB rinse for less than a minute, or just until the milky look of the water cleared, when a student doing a "variables assignment" chose the length of that wash. He found that the print was much clearer and brighter with a longer first wash... His (if memory serves.... it's in my notes... somewhere) was about 5 minutes. I suppose it's a concatenation of variables affecting each other or cancelling each other, but I'd suggest before adapting that "no more than a minute"... do a test. However, I, too, found that toning with palladium made a considerably darker, richer -- and black -- print. I didn't continue with the process, having become transfixed elsewhere, but, I wonder, does the VDB lose some of its special character by becoming black? (just asking). PS: On the subject of VDB, I've kept emulsion in a brown glass bottle for a year or more... I didn't get a sludge on mixing, but after a number of months I noticed (besides the silvering inside the bottle) black precipitate floating around. However, it always redissolved, or went back into solution, during coating. J.
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