>Perhaps you chemists out there could fill me in on how to tell whether my
>>prints are clear.
The coloration of dichromate is intrinsically very intense - so if you
can't see it (in an unexposed region), there ain't much there to worry
about.
The chemical effect of 'clearing' by (meta)bisulphite is to reduce the
yellow chromium(VI) of dichromate to chromium(III) which is blue-green and
much paler by comparison. So the chromium is not removed by the clearing
agent, just made less visible. It would seem better to wash it out if you
can. It also seems to me likely that residual dichromate will be slowly
reduced to chromium(III) by constituents of the paper anyway.
Mike