[Alt-photo] Re: A DEFINITIVE ANSWER?

[Keith Gerling]

If you have an emotional attachment to this dark print and want to save it
at the cost of some extra (plenty extra!) work, you might want to consider
"lightening it up" with a layer of white gum exposed though a positive.  It
won't be the same as a properly exposed pt/pd, but it might be better.


On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 6:41 PM, Diana Bloomfield
<dlhbloomfield at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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
> >
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