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Permanency of VDB (test)
Like many others I have been wondering about the permanency of VDB
prints. So I did a little test. I partly covered a reject print
with black paper and stuck it to my window, facing the sun for a
couple of hours each day (well, on sunny days). That was in December
last year. Today (after more than 7 months) the window cleaners
dropped into my office and so I thought it may be time to have a
closer look at what has happened to the print. Here is the result:
http://www.uni-konstanz.de/FuF/Philo/Philosophie/Fuhrmann/themen/VDBtest.jpg
The scan faithfully reproduces the print (at least on my screen). I
would describe it as follows: The fading is only vvvery slight. It
is more like putting a silver print through Farmer's thus enhancing
contrast. More noticeable than the fading is the alteration in tone.
The exposed part has assumed a warmer brown. So in sum: the print
has become slightly more contrasty and warmer in tone. With many
images that could be an improvement. In such cases we should not
speak of faded but of matured vandykes ;-)
Please note that I deliberately underfixed the print -- after all I
wanted to test a worst case scenario. I washed only a few minutes
and fixed for 1 minute in plain hypo 2% followed by a 20 minutes wash.
André