Re: dichromate stain

Judy Seigel wrote:

>
> Nor does a longer soak necessarily require more exposure --

Of course; I was simply responding to what you and Chris say you do as a
general rule. Chris said she exposes harder as a rule because of the
way she develops with spray, and she gave as proof of the extra-hard
exposure the fact that she has to develop longer than normal. You said
you develop longer than normal as a general rule. Chris gave her
observation as a reason that she gets dichromate stain. You gave your
observation as a reason that you don't get dichromate stain. I found
this amusing and gave it as an example of how useless our explanations
are; perhaps it's true as people sometimes tell me that I have a weird
sense of humor, but this kind of thing always amuses me.

As a general rule, exposure and development go hand in hand, but of
course there are exceptions to every rule. My point was that if your
prints weren't well-exposed in the first place, you wouldn't be able to
develop them longer without losing the image, so probably there's not
that much difference between how hard the two of you expose your
prints.

And of course the only point I was ever trying to make is that for ME,
with my light, no exposure that I ever use in practice causes
dichromate stains, even when I grossly overexpose to the extent that it
has to soak overnight to develop the image properly; that's why I
rejected Chris's explanation that the reason I don't get dichromate
stains is because I don't expose the prints as hard as she does, and why
I'm inclined to say it's my light that's responsible.

With my light, I can harden gum to a fare-thee-well without getting
dichromate stain, THAT's my point. When I'm done with a print you can
pour boiling water on it with force, household ammonia, 7% acid, and it
just laughs at it all. So I don't think it's the extent of gum hardening
that determines whether dichromate stain happens or not; I think it has
to do with the particular kind of light. Some lights, I've come to
believe, are just overkill for gum, unless you really go to a low
concentration of dichromate, and then you have to deal with that high
contrast. Obviously I prefer everything just the way I've got it.

I've just exposed a print for a minute in direct sunlight. I should have
given it 20-30 seconds but I wanted to be REALLY sure to get dichromate
stain. It's been in the wash for half an hour and it's going to need
more time; it's definitely way overexposed. But the extra time is to
develop the print; the soak isn't going to do anything for the
dichromate stain. In my practice, dichromate is gone right away; it's
completely out of the print within five minutes. The few times I've seen
dichromate stain, no amount of soaking in water gets rid of it, it has
to be cleared. So I wonder if we're even talking about the same thing.

some pigments
> are faster, some negatives expose quicker,

Of course, that goes without saying. When I referred to hardness of
exposure, I wasn't talking about length of exposure, but extent of gum
hardening, which takes different amounts of time depending on negative
and dichromate concentration and many other things.

 and sometimes I want to wash away color
> in any event --

Well sure, so does everyone once in a while, but you were saying that
you develop long as a general practice; as a general practice, you have
to expose well to develop long.

Katharine
Received on Tue Jun 15 10:31:13 2004