On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, epona wrote:
> hmm. perhaps i should have mentioned this sheen was not visible until
> the print dried - while wet, it looked pretty darn good. i air-dried
> it overnight.
The seductiveness of this discussion of the MECHANISM of the silvering, or
plating out is easy for me to resist because it's so far over my head.
However, I think two points are worth making:
1. I didn't mean heat drying AFTER printing, I meant heat drying of the
emulsion before exposing. The fact that the silvering doesn't show up
until the print is dry (usually) only stands for itself, doesn't tell
anything about what caused it. Whether the cause is keeping the emulsion
on the surface, or an effect of heat on wet emulsion, or perhaps the
proximity of electricity molecules -- would have to be proved.
2. Of literally hundreds of students doing VDB, I never saw the
silvering-- or plating out -- on a print that hadn't been heat dried. Or
to put it another way, before the penny dropped & I made the connection,
we often had plating out (students are in a big hurry -- hair dryering
seems to be the norm, reflexive in fact, at school). The patterns of the
silver in the shadows could be quite stunning. Too bad it proved nearly
impossible to control.
Of course that was VDB. Christina/argyro may have a different phenomenon.
Judy
Received on Thu Jan 8 14:48:54 2004
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