U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: Van Dyke question(s)

Re: Van Dyke question(s)



Hi Judy,

I have a some experience with toning Vandykes; they will all change the colour. As far as I know, there is no way around this. 

Platinum - rich black dmax with black/brown mid-tones. 
Palladium - black/brown dmax with subtle olive green cast mid-tones. 
Clerc's Thiourea Gold toner (1/2 the amount of Gold Chloride solution) - still is purple/brown but the purple isn't as strong with only half the amount of gold chloride with a rich black dmax. 

All these colours are from printing on Stonehenge and Platine. I have found that Platine has better dmax but has the bad habit of retaining the sensitizer, giving very pale yellowish high-lights (this has been especially bad with Gold Thiourea toner.

I have come to prefer the Platinum & Gold toners. The Gold toner looks fantastic on a warmer paper.  

cheers
david


On 14-Jan-08, at 11:52 PM, Judy Seigel wrote:


A friend has a commission for a series of prints in Van Dyke Brown, which she loves... but my experience with a beautiful VDB given to me by someone else and left out in normal living-room light (fluorescent, however) is that it faded noticeably -- in about 10 years. Though meanwhile I have a VDB on glass by Galina that's been hanging in a window for several years and shows no change at all... I figure, however, that it must have been toned.

So I told her that:

1. The prints wouldn't be archival unless they were toned, and,

2. Gold toning wouldn't seriously change the color (which was much of the appeal).

But then I thought, it's at least 10 years -- maybe more -- since I gold toned a VDB.  Do I *really* remember the color? So I said, I'll ask The List... "they'll know."

I'm also going to give her Liam's wonderful article about "Make your own gold chloride" from P-F, though she said she doesn't have any gold teeth or old wedding rings tucked away. (Possibly a gold coin or two, tho my guess would be that the coin is worth more than the equivalent amount of gold dust would cost.)

Anyway, comments on toning VDB for archivality, et al., would be much appreciated...  (I also toned VDB with palladium toner, which gave a rich deep black, but this quest is for the beautiful VDB brown.  Would selenium work?  Can you still get selenium?)

TIA,

Judy

david drake photography
www.daviddrakephotography.com