Re: palladium drydown and developer

Terry,

First, the yellowing 'surmise' was intended as merely a question, not
a statement of fact or experience. You have to admit that most
(although exceptions I am sure exist) older albumen prints have
yellowing that occurs in the highlights. The extensive Julia Margaret
Cameron collection at the Eastman house, for instance, has yellowed
significantly. As you are alluding, the commonly accepted chemical
reason for this is the formation of silver albumate, which would not
be a factor I suppose if you put platinum or palladium in it.

I have made a fair number of albumen prints, so I am familiar with
how to coat the paper and so forth. And it sounds like the key for
you was in the dilution, which I indeed suspected after trying it
myself with some albumen I had on hand. I kept diluting it in a
serial fashion, but perhaps did not go far enough.

Regards,

Clay

On Jul 21, 2006, at 7:29 AM, TERRYAKING@aol.com wrote:

>
>
> Clay
>
> If one's first efforts at making something are, as you say,
>
> 'messy and not all that effective'
>
> a lot of research and experimentation is needed to make them
> effective and easy to use.
>
> As you say, I did mention these processes at APIS 2005.when I
> demonstrated the chrysotype rex process which needed as much hard
> work to find a method that others could use. The cyanotype rex
> process also needed a lot of work,that is why I feel justified in
> charging for the pdf.
>
> You are right, the two methods use albumen and collodion. What
> started me on the road to produce collodion/platinum prints was a
> print, made some time in the 19C, at the Getty Conservation
> Institute in Santa Monica. It was stunningly beautiful in terms of
> subtlety of gradation and smoothness. It set out to emulate it. I
> have done so.
>
> If enough people show enough interest, I can let people hold these
> prints, and he single coat gum, in their own hands at APIS 2006 in
> Oxford in September or at the Historical Conference in Rochester in
> October..There will be a similar event in Pittsburgh in April. The
> registration fee for the Oxford conference is 150GBP The
> conference is being held in the Oxford Museum of the History of
> Science and the accommodation, and part of the conference, will be
> in St Edmunds Hall, one of the oldest of the Oxford colleges.. As
> my usual helpers need to be gainfully employed elsewhere, I will
> need helpers. Any volunteers?
>
> As to the albumen print, the size needs to be applied at a certain
> dilution and needs to be prepared as if one were making an albumen
> print. Many will know that I included albumen printing in my
> comprehensive Wedgwood to Bromoil workshops that lasted over the
> academic year. Combining the two processes produced beautiful
> results. Once one has worked out the method, the process is not
> messy, is failrly simple and does not produce yellow prints. It is
> a bit smelly though.
>
> The answer to the yellowing problem is there in the literature for
> anyone to read. I have 19C albumen prints that show no sign of
> yewllowing while my own, from twenty years ago, do not do so either.
>
> It is the same with the collodion. It took a great deal of effort
> to make it work. But now that I have made it work, simply and
> easily, the resulting prints are truly exciting. No dry down !
> Come to the conferences and see for yourself.. I am using Fabrian
> Artistico paper.
>
> The point is that I took on the hassle so that others could use the
> processes. . But, of course, I could keep the whole thing a big
> secret so that people, when they see the prints can say 'how on
> earth did he do that ?'
>
> Is anyone interested in workshops or a pdf ?
>
> Terry
>
>
>
>
>
> In a message dated 21/07/2006 11:54:36 GMT Daylight Time,
> wcharmon@wt.net writes:
>
>>
>> There was a minor amount of sub-rosa discussion bandied about among
>> some of the attendees of the last APIS about this issue. It was
>> stated at the conference by Mr King that these mysterious methods for
>> eliminating platinum drydown are two-fold: one method involves using
>> albumen as a sizing agent prior to coating, the other a similar
>> approach using collodion.
>>
>> You may reasonably ask how these work. Well, I tried them. As you can
>> well imagine, the albumen provides a wonderfully smooth surface on
>> the paper for the sensitizer to slop around upon. When I tried this
>> at home using various dilutions of albumen 'subbing' on paper, I
>> found it messy and not all that effective. I also have questions
>> about the propensity for yellowing that albumen exhibits in every
>> true albumen print I have ever seen that has any years on it.
>>
>> The collodion method proved very frustrating. The stuff is loaded
>> with ether and alcohol and went right through several of the papers
>> I was using, leaving me with more of a grease-o-type than a platinum
>> print.
>>
>> Easy, simple, effective? Not in my experience. Admittedly, I did not
>> do an exhaustive test on every possible paper, but I did try the
>> papers I commonly use: Fabriano EW, Rives BFK, COT320 and Whatman's.
>> My assessment? Not worth the hassle.
>>
>> I think the reputation for drydown in platinum comes from the tonal
>> scale being 'squeezed' from both ends. As others have pointed out,
>> the shrinkage of the paper as it dries brings image forming particles
>> closer together in the highlight areas, causing them to visually
>> darken slightly. The way to avoid this, again, as others have pointed
>> out, is to use papers that exhibit a lower degree of dimensional
>> change as they dry.
>>
>> The other phenomenon that has not been mentioned is the microscopic
>> 'fuzzing' of the paper surface that occurs as paper dries. This seems
>> to affect the dark shadow areas much more. It is really more
>> accurately called 'dry-up'. If you slap a wet pt/pd print on a
>> reflection densitometer, you will get a much higher reading (in the
>> 1.8 range) than you will a few hours later after it has dried. The
>> tiny fibers of the paper then stand proud and cause a loss of
>> reflection density that in the best of cases will give you reflection
>> densities in the neighborhood of 1.4-1.5. This is almost a full stop
>> of reflection density loss.
>>
>> As to what can be done to mitigate this effect, I have found that
>> very light gelatin sizing (in the 1% range) can help to a degree.
>> Another approach is to deal with this after the print is dry and
>> apply either wax or subsequent gum coats. I have a waxed vellum print
>> that has measured Dmax of 1.9 using several layers of Gamblin cold
>> wax medium.
>>
>> My personal preference is for additional layers of expose gum, since
>> it offers so many options for color manipulation of the image.
>> Finally, a coat of Liquitex Gloss medium diluted 1:8 will also have
>> the effect of causing a measurable (though relatively minor half
>> stop) increase in Dmax. Again, I think this is because it causes the
>> microscopic fibers to lay down and behave.
>>
>> One final method that I have heard mentioned but have not tried is to
>> run the finished print through an etching press and 'calendar' the
>> paper.
>>
>> My two cents and experience with the issue,..
>>
>> Clay
>
>
Received on 07/21/06-06:47:02 AM Z