palladium bleeding, loooonnnnnggg results

OK,
I cant believe I gave up a nice relaxing breakfast with Mark Nelson to stay
at home, pack, attend a wedding, and maniacially expose tonal palettes all
the while, but here it is before I leave town....

All am citrate--I decided to use the developer that has produced more bleed
for me.

Follows all Platine:

10 drops sensitizer--lotsa bleed
10 drops sensitizer + 2 drops extra ferric--lotsa bleed
10 drops sensitizer + 6 drops extra ferric--lotsa lotsa bleed and bled
continually in the clear and the water wash afterward
10 drops sensitizer + 1 drop Tween--minimal bleed
10 drops sensitizer + 2 drops methylated alcohol--minimal bleed, more than
Tween tho
10 drops sensitizer coated onto wet paper--no bleed, lots of printout before
development and a weak print that did not clear well of ferric in EDTA Tetra
plus sodium sulfite (of course, because I coated wet paper which one
wouldn't do--I wanted to really test the extreme of humidity)

Follows, Cranes Platinotype/Cover and Arches Platine am citrate developer:

10 drops sensitizer with new ferric oxalate on cranes cover: no bleeding
10 drops sensitizer new ferric oxalate on cranes cover with humidified--no
bleeding
10 drops sensitizer new ferric oxalate on cranes cover with 2 drops
methylated alcohol--no bleeding
10 drops sensitizer new ferric oxalate Arches Platine 2 drops methylated
alcohol--lotsa lotsa bleeding (?? don't know why this is the case except I
am using leftover chunks of Platine and therefore they may be from different
batches of paper for all I know...)
10 drops sensitizer new ferric oxalate Arches Platine very little bleeding
10 drops sensitizer new ferric oxalate lots tween--no bleeding

Well, can one possibly draw conclusions here with all these "one little
tests"???

I conclude that this batch of Platine bleeds more than cover. It could only
be because cover is more absorbent. My guess is that either by humidity or
tween or methylated alcohol and using the right paper, the solution sinks
into the surface better and doesn't sit on top and bleed when it hits the
developer.

Decreasing the ratio of metal salts to ferric did not work, but I have not
tried increasing the metal salts to see if that has an effect.

My droppers all are 20 drops to the ml.

My ferric could have been getting old. I tested it in some potassium
ferricyanide and it immediately went brown and then slowly had a wave of
green in it. However, I did the same with my new ferric and it was close to
the same effect. But you will notice that overall I got less bleeding with
the new ferric.

What I will need to do when I return home is increase humidity in my room,
use methylated alcohol or Tween (maybe the alcohol first choice only because
Tween was a bit...soapy?...and I actually got a smoother tonal scale and
more printing in of the highlights on Platine with methylated alcohol). But
I don't think either is needed for Cover--only increase in humidity in the
room and perhaps switching to sodium citrate. I do think the developer comes
into play as well as that my batch of Platine may just be sized differently
than the last.

I think why troubleshooting is so hard with this particular issue is it
looks like it is a combination of factors at work. But you all can look at
the data and see what major point I am missing.

Now to look at all the 101 tones in each tonal palette and see how they
relate to the different methods, above--paper, Tween, methylated alcohol,
etc.
Regards,
Chris
CZAphotographycom
Received on 08/13/06-08:08:05 PM Z