palladium bleeding still

Good evening dear all,

One benefit of living in the same state as Photographer's Formulary is
occasionally a visiting dignitary will pass through town and grace me with
his/her presence, which was the case today. Mark Nelson is here on his way
to do a workshop up there, and I roped him into coming over to my house to
observe said platinum/palladium bleeding problem.

Sure enough, I printed 6 tonal palettes and had him watch my every move,
from coating to drying to exposing to developing. It was a very tense
moment of performance anxiety when the first tonal palette did not bleed and
I thought he would think I was making it all up for a little list activity,
but lo and behold, the next 5 did and really impressed Mark (as in "Holy
S--t!). He had not seen that before.

I used both Arches Platine and Crane's Cover, and used THREE developers this
time--sodium citrate, ammonium citrate, and brand new fresh Potassium
Oxalate (hence eliminating the acid/alkaline issue). Platine bled like a
banshee in all developers, even the sodium this time. I printed on the
back/bumpy side of Platine and still it bled. Cranes bled much less but did
bleed minimally.

I have more things Mark said to try: dilute the mix half with water and do
2 coats, try Cot 320 with my usual practice, change to a fresh ferric
oxalate (mine was only a couple months old tho), test to see if I am losing
density in the highlights as well as the shadows, and as two have told me
offlist, reduce my palladium salts. Actually I will next try this last first
(whoa dudette--weird sentence there).

That's all for now folks!
Chris
CZAphotography.com
Received on 08/11/06-11:23:03 PM Z