RE: palladium bleeding still

Chris,

Dick Arentz mentions this phenomena in his 'Platinum & Palladium Printing'
book, - 2nd edition (p. 107).

I can also tell you that it occurs with kallitypes and VDBs in case you did
not know.

I've been printing a lot of Cot 320 for the last few weeks and it occurs
with that paper also, but not to the degree I've seen it happen with other
papers using plt/pld.

You can quickly get a build up of reduced metal in your developer which
helps contribute to the problem, IMO. One way to solve this without dumping
your developer is to let the developer sit for several hours and then decant
the clear developer leaving the residue at the bottom of the coantainer
which you can dispose of. But it also happens with fresh developer.

Just be aware that Cot 320 has a severe dry down, but that shouldn't be a
problem with digital negatives.

My worthless 2 cents,

Don Bryant
  

-----Original Message-----
From: Christina Z. Anderson [mailto:zphoto@montana.net]
Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2006 1:22 AM
To: Alt, List
Subject: 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 08/11/06-11:58:32 PM Z