FW: Negative Cleaning Help

Katharine,

A slightly damp print is definitely what happened. The humidity has kicked
in and they take much longer to dry than in the winter. Thanks for
experimenting. My only problem is that I printed with it 3 more times
before I noticed the stuff on the negative. I wasn't paying too much
attention to the prints, just a quick glance to see that the exposure was
right. It bugs me that I could have fixed it if I had known right away.
I've been soaking it for a while now. I already accidentally scrapped off a
little of the emulsion, luckily in a not so obvious spot. The gum on the
negative is in much more important places.

Please keep thinking for me. I know someone will come up with something.

Lisa

-----Forwarded Message-----
From: Katharine Thayer <kthayer@pacifier.com>
Sent: May 15, 2004 4:55 PM
To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
Subject: Re: Negative Cleaning Help

Well, then I got curious and tried it. I took a 4x5 negative that I
didn't care about and put it on slightly damp coated paper and exposed
it for the usual time. After exposure there were all these bits of dried
coating on the emulsion side of the negative, just as you described. I
put the negative in the wash with the print and the dried coating washed
right off.
kt

Katharine Thayer wrote:
>
> As usual, my thinking continues to develop after I've clicked "send,"
> and it occurs to me belatedly that it's not of course just a matter of
> coating and film, there's that silver stuff in between, and I don't have
> any idea how that will affect the ease of removal.
> kt
>
> Katharine Thayer wrote:
> >
> > Lisa Reddig wrote:
> > >
> > > I am doing some gums today. Something went wrong and I now have pieces of
> > > pigment/gum/dichromate on the emultion side of the negative. An original
> > > 4x5 B&W kodak trix negative. Never had anything like this before. How do
I
> > > get it off??
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Hi Lisa,
> > It sounds like your coating wasn't quite dry when you put the negative
> > on it, and some of the damp coating mix came off on the underside of the
> > negative where it touched. I don't know what these other guys are
> > talking about, paper sticking to negative; that's not what I'm reading
> > here, but it's possibly of course that I'm missing something. If I'm
> > right and it's just coating mixture, then it depends... If it's under a
> > fairly dense area of the negative, it should simply wash off in water,
> > just like the coating that was still on the paper would wash off at that
> > place. And even if it's under a less dense area, and therefore
> > hardened, the film may well be slick enough that the hardened gum won't
> > stick anyway. From my experiences printing on mylar it would be my guess
> > that it's harder to make hardened gum stick to film than to make it let
> > go; I've found that I usually have to use treated mylar, or treat it
> > myself, to get the hardened gum to stick through development. So my
> > guess would be that this should wash off in water.
> >
> > I would experiment first with putting the negative in water and letting
> > it sit for a while; hopefully the stuff will dissolve right off. If not,
> > I'd dab very gently with a damp lintless cloth, and if that doesn't do
> > it, then I don't know. I've never had this happen with an original
> > negative, but I've done it a couple of times with digital negatives,
> > which is a different story. With a paper negative, it won't wash off,
> > and with a Pictorico negative, water ruins the negative. With a digital
> > negative it's easy to just print another one. Good luck, and I'll be
> > interested to know what happens.
> > Katharine Thayer

------ End of Forwarded Message
Received on Sun May 16 00:16:52 2004