Re: silvery sheen

Hi Christine,
     The platinum et al printers can answer this better than I, but for a
while there was a discussion about washoff and bronzing and it was related
to not allowing the sensitizer to sink in enough into the paper before
drying or before exposing--one reason, anyway. The reason why I mentioned
"bronzing" as an idea is that it has also been called solarizing, and the
cause of this bronzing/solarizing has not been definitive to date, on this
list, but there are possible reasons that contribute, and solarizing may be
silvery for argyrotype, who knows....I'm not an argyro expert, just a
guesser. If you do a word search on bronzing in the archives you'll find
info related on it to platinum/palladium and I'm not sure it has ever been
talked about re: argyrotype or VDB.
     Here we're talking about absorbency of paper with gum and lower
contrast and this seems bass ackwards, but somehow there is an amount of
time the solution needs to absorb with a lot of these
processes...cyanotype, too.
     As far as "too flat negs", I have written that argyrotypes need negs
that would print well on a grade 0 paper. You can also adjust darkness with
pot ferri (1 tsp to 2 liters water) and longer fix time...
     OHHHH, shoot, late-breaking news: here are my notes on silvering under
VDB of all places! shoulda checked there first, instead of under
argyyyyyrrrrooooo: you have to fix, btw, after bleaching...anyway I have
the silver deposit can be due to certain papers, using heat to dry the
print, waiting too long to expose the print, overexposing, too much coating,
or not using an acid wash in your processing so that the silver plates out
on the image. These are all notes I have collected from many sources, so
who knows if any are correct--ask the VDB'ers.
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "epona" <acolyta@napc.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Cc: "epona" <acolyta@napc.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 12:19 PM
Subject: Re: silvery sheen

> Hello Christina,
>
> Perhaps I've got everything conceptually wrong here. I thought you
> sized paper if it was *too* absorbent, that the sizing would make the
> sensitizer sit more evenly on the surface, and that too absorbent
> papers would have prints with a low DMax? Mayhaps unsized Crane's is
> fine and my negs are too flat. Perhaps its time to purchase a
> densitometer after all. I'm going to make a list of the recommended
> papers and give it a whirl.
>
> No, it's definitley not bronzing. At least it isn't remotely brown.
> It's a little silvery-glittery. Never seen it in a print before.
>
> Thanks much,
> 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
>
> On Jan 7, 2004, at 11:45 PM, Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
>
> >> Then about the silvering on the argyrotype... There may be no
> >> connection,
> >> but -- we found that VDB never silvered out when it wasn't heat
> >> dried...
> >> tho it often did (depending on paper and contrast) when it was heat
> >> dried.
> >> There was quite a literature on the papers that did & didn't "plate
> >> out"
> >> but it didn't happen when air dried at room temp.
> >>
> >> Though this problem may not be that problem, I realize.
> >>
> >> J.
> >
> > I'm puzzled by problems with argyrotype, since it was the easiest of
> > all
> > processes with me, almost brush n' go. However, I used absorbent
> > papers,
> > not sized ones, and I betcha Judy is right, that the solution is
> > sitting on
> > top of the surface instead of being absorbed enough before exposure.
> > I used
> > Rives, Buxton, vellum, and others and altho the Buxton was wonderful
> > (less
> > grainy than Rives), for the price it was not worth the hassle. Both
> > papers
> > are nicely absorbent, and I have never felt the need to size, and
> > gotten
> > very dark darks. My solution was exactly the same as...Christines'
> > was it?
> > And no added sulfamic. Is, btw, the silvering out a bronzing,
> > perhaps, as
> > appears in other processes? Anyway, go out and buy a sheet of Rives
> > and
> > give it a whirl.
> >
> > To get specific, Ware says sizing should be aquapel or alkyletene (sp)
> > dimer
> > sized.
> > chris
> >
> >
>
>
Received on Thu Jan 8 14:06:30 2004