This may be applicable to other iron silver processes as well.
I have never been able to get the Dmax I want out of this process, tho
my last batch was not too bad. This batch, however, is horrendous. I
am getting flat prints with a weird silvery sheen over the surface,
most noticeably in the darker areas, because, well, they are dark. I
made new sensitizer in case it was old, and the extra silver salts were
hanging out and depositing on the paper, which is Crane's 90 lb cover
stock (aka platinotype). The formula is:
Sulphamic acid (spelt 'sulfamic' in the USA) NH2SO3H .....7 g
Silver(I) Oxide Ag2O
............................................................7 g
Ammonium Iron(III) Citrate (the green form) ....................22 g
Tween 20
........................................................................
........0.2 cc
Distilled water to make
......................................................100 cc
Still getting the silvery sheen, whether I tone in gold chloride or
just fix in sodium thio. Then i made the (duh) connection that the bad
prints started to happened coincidentally when I began using crane's
sized with Dick Stevens' sizing formula, which is this:
gelatin 7g
distilled water 500 ml
alum 1g
alcohol absolute 25 ml
do you think it's the sizing causing this weird sheen? i have sized my
paper previously with a .2% gelatin solution minus the alum and
alcohol. could it be those additives? should i trash this whole idea
and just try sandy's kallitype formula? I got a deadline i'm trying to
meet for a finished piece for next thursday.
thanks in advance,
christine
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~
"Crazy" is a term of art: "Insane" is a term of Law. Remember that, and
you will save yourself a lot of trouble.
~ Hunter S. Thompson
Received on Wed Jan 7 15:26:20 2004
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