There was a comment yesterday -- which I lost in the welter of Sense and
Sensitivity messages -- that once a gum print dries it would have to be
resoaked for about a year to soften the emulsion.
Fortunately, this is not the case. The proportion of dichromate is a
significant variable, as is the length of exposure, but in the olden days
it was common practice to work a print after drying and resoaking, or even
just rewetting. Or simply gently abrading the dry coat.
Removing extra emulsion from a print in "automatic" (or ostensibly
automatic) development without leaving a demolition site behind is
difficult to impossible, because the emulsion is *extremely* delicate
before it has dried and the lightest touch can destroy all "photographic
quality." (That is if it's been exposed lightly enough for automatic
development.)
If, however, the print has been dried (especially an underexposed one) the
emulsion can be worked, wet or dry, much more safely -- try cotton swabs.
If you think there's still unexposed dichromate in there, when you're
done, let the print dry, then give a good re-exposure *without the
negative* and, if necessary, soak some more to clear.
Also, I did *not* say one-hour total soak, Terry, rather that, depending
on exposure, one hour may be enough to remove dichromate stain. My soaks
are at times up to 24 hours, and I, too, have had the delightful
experience of turning over a print to find it clean, clean, except for a
darker orange-y blob (or two) from an air bubble.
Usually this soaks off quite readily when reimmersed, leading me to
suspect it of recent origin -- ie., that tiny air bubbles in the water
convene into one or more larger bubbles, rather than the bubble having
been there the whole 24 hours (in which case the spot will be dry and not
dissolve so readily if at all). When you put the print into the tray face
down to develop, it's a good idea to immerse it by a sort of rolling
action, letting the center down first, then lowering each end. This
supposedly eliminates bubbles -- tho, as noted, no guarantee.
However, if you use the currently popular one part gum to two parts
ammonium dichromate formula, your emulsion may well be much harder when
dry. One to one, or even two to one, gives a softer emulsion -- and less
dichromate stain.
Judy