RE: palladium drydown and developer

Dear Mark,
           Once again, you forgot to conclude with “Hehehe”! C’mon, man!
You’re slipping!
                                CHEERS!
                                           BOB

 Please check my website: http://www.bobkiss.com/ <http://www.bobkiss.com/>

"Live as if you are going to die tomorrow. Learn as if you are going to
live forever". Mahatma Gandhi

-----Original Message-----
From: Ender100@aol.com [mailto:Ender100@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 9:55 AM
To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Subject: Re: palladium drydown and developer

Hi Bob,

I use the same microwave method for all my calibrations with PT/PD. This
really speeds things up and I find it to be a very accurate method.
Microwaves vary in terms of power, but I find that 20% power for 4 minutes
does a paper like COT 320 bone dry and ready for evaluation.

I have not noticed the highlights getting lighter and all my prints are from
digital negatives.

I have noticed that I can greatly increase the DMax of my prints with
microwaving if I forget and set the power level too high for too long a
period of time. It also sets off my smoke alarm.

Mark Nelson
Precision Digital Negatives <http://www.precisiondigitalnegatives.com/>

In a message dated 7/21/06 5:12:39 AM, bobkiss@caribsurf.com writes:

Hi all,
    It seems that there are some techniques for minimizing dry down and the
discussion of the causes is very interesting but I feel, if you've got it,
how do you live with it? Though I appreciate the commercial lab's
techniques, I use a microwave oven (which I learned reading Ansel in the
80s). Used, they are pretty cheap and work very well for drying test
strips. I lay the strip across the print in such a way to include the
important highlight, midtone and shadow, when possible. I carry it through
the process to about half way through the clearing, give it a 5 minute wash
and then microwave it for two or three minutes in one minute steps,
depending on the size of the strip. Voila! A dried down print. I judge my
densities and choose my exposure accordingly. This has proved to be VERY
reliable and I hardly ever have a print that isn't the density I have
chosen. Whether I have chosen well is another question ;-)) but I get what
I asked for!
    I mentioned in a post about 1 1/2 to two years ago that I found that
prints
from digital negatives had a curious drying phenomenon that prints from
camera original negs did not. In prints from digital negs, the shadows lost
density but so did the highlights...they both got lighter!!! In prints from
camera original negs the dry down was more standard, i.e. the highlights got
darker and the shadows lighter.
            CHEERS!
                BOB
Received on 07/21/06-08:02:06 AM Z