Washing alt-photo prints

Richard Sullivan (richsul@roadrunner.com)
Sun, 29 Jun 1997 10:17:30 -0600

<x-rich>It is my opinion that most, if not virtually all of us, wash alt-photo prints far far to long.

This comes from A. Adams, Minor White, et al. We all learned our chops printing silver bromide and this the catechism is: wash wash wash.

Why? Because of three things: silver, sulfur, and gelatin. Sulfur attacks silver. Gelatin traps sulfur.

Sulfur compounds are very large molecules. Gelatin is a big huge stringy molecule. Washing sulfur out of gelatin is like washing ball bearings out of steel wool. It takes lots of washing

Most non-silver alt-photo processes do not have these three elements and in my mind can be washed in 5 to 10 minutes and probably even less. I believe that extended washing will degrade the image quality of noble metal process prints, though this is surmised from theory, not empirical observation.

Comments please.

Dick Sullivan

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