From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 08/30/00-07:47:48 PM Z
On Thu, 31 Aug 2000, Rod Fleming wrote:
> Hi Bob
>
> I think you are talking about selective latent image management techniques,
> shortened to SLIMT,or the Sterry technique . With reference to prints, this
> allows, in effect, for the contrast range of the paper to be modified- in
> other words graded paper can be used as a sort of multigrade.
>
> The original Sterry method used a dichromate bleach but this was revised by
> the photographer David Kachel who developed a new version which uses very
> dilute potassium ferricyanide (which is used in Farmer's Reducer etc) for a
> period of between 1-3 minutes between exposure and development. The real
> advantage of the technique is that it is _selective and proportional_. It
> bleaches the most exposed areas the most.
I used the method for lith film... an excellent way to lower contrast
while getting good continuous tone for an enlarged negative. Mostly I used
it on large sheets of Agfa (I think it was Agfa -- green box) direct
duplicating -- high contrast in its native form (I'd come into a box of
20x24). It worked very well -- and I have a folder of notes somewhere or
other I planned to use for an article in the "Negative thinking" section
of P-F..... haven't yet because so many other damn goodies.
Kachel may have the whole thing on his web site now (doesn't everybody
have everything on their website?) but I got it from an article (maybe
2) he had in Creative Camera & Darkroom Photography or whatever the name
of that magazine before it became Photo Techniques.
For lith film the correct dilution of the ferricyanide solution turned out
to be VERY VERY weak... like 1/2% or less... What I didn't understand at
the time was that such a weak dilution would have to be used one-shot (I
was quite new at all of it), so my results were erratic -- one good one
and one where it didn't "work." As I say, I figured that out in
retrospect. But the method made a lot of sense for the contrasty
duplicating lith available at the time -- whether it would be as useful
for pos-neg lith I don't know ... probably as much or more control by
using Soemarko's low contrast developer for the positive, then neg from
that.
Judy
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