>Before you all start commenting on how careful you all work. (And, I am
>confident that we all are excellent technicians with alternative
>processes.) You may wish to test if your ambient lighting is safe.
>
>Do the following for two situations 1) in your typical ambient light; 2)
>with a safelight safe for working with typical B&W silver papers.
>
>Place some removable tape on paper normally used.
>Coat as usual. lkv1@psu.edu (Be careful when drying not to let coating puddle near
>edge of tape for this may influence results.)
>Mark the edge of the tape with pencil dots.
>Remove the tape.
>Process through all processing steps as is typical.
>
>After dry, examine. Look carefully along the pencil dots for any change
I disagree. This kind of test may give you negative results yet you may
still have a fog problem. The effect of light is cumulative. Therefore fog
problems will manifest themselves in the *highlight* and *light* areas of
the print, well before they appear in *unexposed* areas of a print. The
same goes for other photographic processes in general.
>If is highly unlikely that the safelight sample will have a value while
>the ambient light sample does not. But if it does occur, I would
>suggest starting over from scratch and being extra careful.
Fogged highlights where the fog is not caused by a poor safelight is fairly
common. The main cause, as explained in a wellknown book, is a ferric
oxalate that is too old.
Luis Nadeau
nadeaul@nbnet.nb.ca
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
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