I pulled my first platinum prints this evening. Very exciting. I had
beginners luck with the first one and pretty much nailed it. It's just a
touch light but it's a portrait of my wife and the lighter skin tone is
quite lovely.
A couple of questions:
1) The prints I'm making are quite small--6X7cm. The first two I applied
the emulsion at the same time and it went on well (6 drops total each
print). The third was mixed and applied later but I had some
difficulties. Problem: the brush soaked up the solution before I could
even spread it. I'm using a 1.5" hake brush cut down to 1/2" length. Was
the brush too dry? Was it too small an amount of solution to work with?
Or, is the brush too thick--3/8"? Or?
2) On this third print, the solution did not cover enough so I let it dry
and I added a second coat. The resulting print had much deeper blacks in
the areas coated twice. I seem to remember reading about obtaining deeper
blacks with a second coat, is that correct? The print also looked grainy.
I suspect in my attempts to spread the emulsion, I was too rough and that
was the cause?
3) OK, one more. Does platinum have a similar exposure curve to silver?
I.E., will I see the same increase in density with a 2X exposure as I do
in printing silver?
That's all! Thanks in advance. I'm off to work at it some more.
David Kern
dkern@juno.com