From: Liam Lawless (liam.lawless@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: 02/15/03-09:05:17 PM Z
Niranjan,
I can't comment on results Schaefer may have obtained, or if he's even tried
what he suggests, but if you apply silver nitrate to the paper before the
salt you'll find that some papers - not all - start to yellow quite quickly,
perhaps before you can get them dried and salted. (Some citric acid in with
the silver lessens this tendency.) I have not tried salt printing with
silver first, but guess that it might result in staining if you're trying to
print with white margins (the silver spreading out when in the salt
solution. When a salt print gets its first wash, tap water (if used) turns
cloudy because the washed-out silver nitrate combines with chlorides in the
water; the same thing would happen in a salt solution and some of the silver
chloride that's floating about would surely settle on the borders?)
Predictability should not really be an issue with salt; at 12% to 14%, the
standard silver solution is considerably stronger than the salt, which
should guarantee the necessary excess of silver. You might run into trouble
if you're too mean with the silver solution, brushing it too thinly; with an
insufficient or nonexistent excess, you'll find the sensitivity is very low.
Too little silver makes a difference, but a little too much will not.
I doubt if Schaefer's plan would work well. With the silver first and then
soaking in salt, the excess of siver nitrate will be zero. The excess is
therefore supplied by the final 1% silver nitrate bath, which seems rather
weak to fulfil its purpose.
And a final comment: it's fine soaking/floating prints in the salt, but
silver is too expensive to use that way (in this country, at any rate!) If
you float/soak, you'll quickly contaminate the solution with organic matter
from the paper, and after you've used it once you won't know its strength
any more. Brushing the silver will probably give you greater consistency.
Liam
-----Original Message-----
From: Niranjan Patel [mailto:niranjan.patel@worldnet.att.net]
Sent: 16 February 2003 02:24
To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
Subject: Re: salt print questions
I am fairly new to this list and newer still to the alternative photo
processes....having yet to make my first print. I have decided to start
with the oldest and the most basic of all processes, i.e. the salt print.
So I thought may be I will piggy-pack on this discussion.
I have been reading as much as I can find about this process on this list as
well as other web sources and several books, as I wait for all the
chemicals/papers/etc. to come together. One book, which is not an
alternative process book per se, gives a procedure that is different from
what is conventionally reported elsewhere. The book is by John
Schaefer -his Ansel Adams Guide Part II. In the book, he recommends to put
a coating of the Silver nitrate first, followed by floating in salt and the
finally a short float in a dilute (1%) Silver Nitrate. It makes sense (to
me) that this would result in a more controlled Nitrate/Chloride ratio on
the paper, perhaps giving rise to better predictability in the resulting
prints, as excess Silver Nitrate is known to play the role of a catalyst
(from what I have read) in conversion of Silver Chloride to metallic Silver
during exposure.
I was wondering if anyone on the list has tried something like that and
would care to share his/her experience/opinion on the same.
Thanks for your response.
Niranjan Patel.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christina Z. Anderson" <zphoto@montana.net>
To: "Alt Photo List" <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 5:14 PM
Subject: salt print questions
> For all you salt print aficionados:
>
> 1. Is ossein gelatin better in any way than Knox?
> 2. Do those of you who do this process use a 5% or 10% fixing bath? One
or
> two baths?
> 3. Do you overexpose it 2 stops to account for lightening in the
> fixing/washing steps, or more (this equals 4 steps on a Stouffer's,
> correct)?
> 4. Does a gelatin/salt coating produce warmer or colder tones? Reilly
says
> warmer/redder but it seems other sources say colder.
> 5. Anyone use a regular Edwards light box with salt? Is it too slow?
> 6. Anyone try printing toward the sun with tissue paper diffusion to
> increase contrast? Why technically does the sun produce the lowest
> contrast--caillier effect?
> 7. What's your favorite paper?
>
> Whew! I think that about does it for the moment.
> Chris
>
>
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