[Alt-photo] Re: A DEFINITIVE ANSWER?

[Diana Bloomfield]

Hi Bob,

I've obviously never bleached a pt/pd print, but I am guessing that it might be difficult to get an even tonality, and you might also lose some smoothness.  But I could be wrong.  If I wanted to know how to do it, though, I would not try it on an otherwise acceptable 20x24 print.   I also would not throw out the print.  I'd keep it, and just consider it a darker version.   If every alt process print came out looking exactly the same, with no differences-- I would be shocked and a bit disappointed.  At that point, you may as well just make a few digital prints and embrace the sameness.  

Diana


On Jul 18, 2013, at 7:10 PM, BOB KISS wrote:

> DEAR DIANA & ERIC,
> 	As mentioned in my original e-mail *I did make a lighter print* but
> it seems a shame to toss out a 20X24 palladium print that would be easily
> correctible with a subtle bleaching if it were a silver gelatin.
> 	Further, I believed Ansel Adams when he said, making a musical
> analogy, “The negative is the score.  The print is the performance!”  Like
> most performing musicians who "shape" (volume and equalization) their sound
> to the size and acoustics of the hall in which they will be performing, I
> try to fine tune the tonality of my prints according to the type of lighting
> under which they will be shown and viewed.  I have a track light set up to
> view my dry prints that will be shown in galleries with spotlighting.  I
> also ask the collectors who buy my prints what lighting will be on the
> prints in the rooms where they intend to hang them.  The differences are not
> enormous; they are subtle, but most of you on this list would see them and
> the prints do sing when printed for the specific lighting.  So the "brighter
> light" theory doesn't work here.
> 	Earlier today I received an e-mail suggesting that HBr, hydrobromic
> acid, does work as a mild reducing agent for palladium.  The trick is
> finding this on this little island called Barbados.  If I can find some and
> try reducing this print I will report results.  The other option Is to cut
> it up and use it to test new toners and new surface waxes.  Living here one
> learns to waste as little as possible.  
> 		CHEERS!
> 			BOB
>