Re: palladium bleeding still

Hi Clay, Kerik, Don, Marek, et al,

Clay, you may very well be right--ambient humidity is 30-40%, but the reason
I did not suspect that is that this winter I never experienced this when the
ambient humidity was 15-30%.

I checked list archives and I noticed that other complainers of the problem
were also using Platine. However, I will for sure put the humidity on my
list.

Kerik, I don't dry with heat. I coat the paper til there are no more wet
spots and then put it to air dry in the closet for 20 minutes. It
still feels cool to me when I expose it, so there is still moisture in the
paper.

Don, I did know it occurred with VDB and kallitypes because I did an archive
search and bleeding came up a lot with those two processes. And, your 2
cents aren't worthless because you were one of the ones to tell me to reduce
my pd salts :).

I remember it was Michael Kravit who experienced this and added PVA goo in
the amount of 2 drops per 5ml sensitizer, but I don't know him, and don't
know if he is on the list to tell us if he ever solved his problem
completely with this method and does it all the time or if it is paper
dependent.

I know it is not my developers, because they are fresh and clear, especially
the pot ox.

I have to leave town (again! It seems I am on a trip-of-every-two-weeks
club) so will have to wait to test stuff til I get back, but today I was
going to check one thing--that is the drop count of my eyedroppers, in case
one is a 15 per ml dropper and the other a 20 per ml. Can't wait to get
this figured out. I thought of this in the middle of the night.

Thanks for all your suggestions. Marek, thanks for the late-breaking Tween,
too, will add that to the list of to do's. I had tried methyl alcohol but I
think I overdid it and it affected the look of my print so much that it was
yukky. And, it is possible/probable that the reason Cranes doesn't do it as
much as Platine is because it is a more absorbent paper, not because of some
acid/alkaline thing or who knows what.

And you all think gum is difficult....
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Clay" <wcharmon@wt.net>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2006 4:38 AM
Subject: Re: palladium bleeding still

> Really weird. I have never seen this problem to this degree in my
> darkroom. On question: What is your ambient humdity? The reason I ask is
> that I observed the same thing happen at a workshop at the Formulary in
> August many years back. And I know it is more arid there, than say,
> Houston in August (Otherwise know as Dhaka-on-the-Gulf.
>
> Clay
> On Aug 12, 2006, at 12:22 AM, Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
>
>> 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 08/13/06-08:05:49 PM Z