[alt-photo] Re: Palladium Failures

[Mark Nelson]

Eric,

Has the weather changed there?  Furnace kicking on?

My guess is uneven moisture as indicated by printing out and solarization.  

Try a magic brush, use more emulsion in a single coat and with magic brush you can push it around more,  don't use hair dryer, and let the coated paper stand dry in 60 % humidity chamber then expose. adjust length of drying time to improve results depending on the ambient humidity in the studio. I get a wide range of ambient humidity here near Chicago during seasonal changes, so my drying time might vary from 10 min to an hour, but will be consistent on any day and average about 30 min.

Once my printing suddenly went berserk and it was due to a contaminated brush. 

Hope this helps. 

Mark Nelson
www.PrecisionDigitalNegatives.com
PDNPRint Forum @ Yahoo Groups
www.MarkINelsonPhoto.com

sent from my iPhonetypeDeviceThingy

On Sep 30, 2011, at 6:15 PM, eric nelson <emanphoto at gmail.com> wrote:

> In my 20+ years of working with DOP palladium and platinum, I have never had
> so many issues arising as I am now that I can't figure out.
> 
> My studio is in our basement, 4 steps down from ground level, and I have
> been testing both Platine and Cot 320.  I have had a momentary success w/Cot
> 320 to get *one* print made with 1 neg, but now, w/new negs generated by the
> same LVT and profile, I have had just about every kind of failure.
> 
> My previous working methods, (in my old studio that was above ground with no
> humidity control), that were *perfect* years back with the 'old style'
> Platine was to double coat with a tube, leaving the sensitizer to set for 10
> minutes each time before drying w/a hot hair dryer.
> 
> Fast FWD to present day.. with early tests in my new studio that I assume is
> more humid than my old one, tube coating didn't work well at all and the
> images were slightly abraded looking on Cot 320 and even worse with
> unevenness using Platine, so I switched to a hake brush and dismissed
> Platine as unworkable.  Double coating on Cot 320 with a tube gave a grainy
> ugly print.
> 
> Test prints on the Cot with a tube looked OK initially but when used for an
> actual 16x20 print were uneven.  Another defect using the tube that I
> thought would disappear with more sensitizer was the appearance of paper
> fiber disturbances, i.e. those little dang hairs that one could spot out if
> they were Lilliputian.
> 
> So yesterday's test prints showed solarization in the blacks.  I haven't had
> that happen in 20 years!  This occurred with both Platine and Cot coating
> with a brush.
> I researched this online and found a posting that suggested using a cooler
> setting on the dryer which I did today.
> I coated 2 sheets taped together (edge to edge) which I then separated to
> dry one immediately, and the other I dried 5 minutes later.
> I could see immediately in the first one I dried that the coating had pulled
> away in a round pattern despite using the brush to spread the sensitizer top
> to bottom and left to right.
> The 5 min. set time coating seemed a little better, but both, once
> developed, had solarization in the shadows and unevenness.
> 
> Here's my procedure presently:
> 
> Single coat paper w/slightly damp hake brush (distilled water) with
> paper lying on plexiglass.
> Drop schedule for tests on paper 10"x12" 18-4-22Pd
> Developed in ammonium citrate, rinsed, cleared in 4% citric, 5-10 min wash
> then edta/sulfite bath and washed again.
> Unevenness is showing up in the *printed out* image.
> The prints are being exposed with 8 brand new 4 foot BL tubes for 18 mins.
> which appears a little dark.
> 
> Here is a scan of my 2 latest tests. On the left is the 5 min set time and
> the test on the right was dried immediately.  The scan exacerbated the
> defects so FYI they do not look as bad as this.  Color is off too but I got
> it as close as I could in a quick scan.
> http://tinyurl.com/3m4grgf
> 
> This a sample of the same area of the *original* digital file.  The negative
> I'm printing from was made with an LVT.
> http://tinyurl.com/3lluzoz
> 
> I know I must be leaving something out in my descriptions so feel free to
> ask for any clarifications.
> Any suggestions are *greatly* appreciated.
> 
> Eric
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