salt prints or van dyke?

[timeUnit]

Hi people,

after a loooong break from digital negs and contact printing, during which I've started making wet plates and getting pretty OK with that, I'm hoping to make some contact prints again.

It seems the consensus is that salt prints or van dykes are "easy" to start with. I've done some gum prints before, but it takes forever to make a finished print and I'm not really the patient guy. However, negatives for gum prints and VDB/salt are very different in terms of DR.

Are salt print negs and VDB negs more similar? Can I use the same negs and curves for both processes?

Is it possible to get similar dMax on salt prints and VDB?

Is either of them less finicky with paper?

Thank you very much!

Henning

[Loris Medici]

Negs that work for Vandyke will work for Salt Prints too. But may not work in the opposite way; usually salt prints and albumen prints both need slightly stronger negative than you would need for Vandyke but it's manageable. All depends on your formulations...

I would recommend you Vandyke, because it's simpler than salt printing. You have a single step sensitization procedure (but mixing the sensitizer is harder) also in salt printing it's hard to brush colorless silver nitrate solution (whereas it's easy with the yellow/green Vandyke solution) or maintaining a stable silver bath is a PITA if you opt to tray sensitize. Another point is the fact that sensitized salted paper is more easily fogged when compared to Vandyke sensitized paper.

[timeUnit]

Thank you Loris!

[timeUnit]

I've done a bit of testing today, and I think I'm on the right track. However, my exposures are quite short, less than 3 minutes. I'm using a home made UV-hood, based on 6 Philips Actinic 05 tubes (18 Watt each). "ChartThrob" tells me I should expose even less, as my max black is up a bit in the mid tones. That is VERY short I believe.

Attached is the last test chart that was a 3 min exposure. dMax really sucks, and I think that is due to humidity.



Finally I made a print with a neg that I made just for fun. It's neither a very good print or the perfect neg, but at least it's not a test chart...

[timeUnit]

It seems to me that if the coated paper is too dry the dmax goes down and there is a gray sheen over the print. My darkroom is about 20°C and RH is around 25%. It's due to the winter... Right now it's not realistic to buy a humidifier for the darkroom, so I was thinking of buying a spray bottle (for plants) and fill it with distilled water. I could then easily spray the back side of the coated paper with water, and so increase the humidity and possibly the dMax. Sounds like a good idea?

[Don Bryant]

It seems to me that if the coated paper is too dry the dmax goes down and there is a gray sheen over the print. My darkroom is about 20°C and RH is around 25%. It's due to the winter... Right now it's not realistic to buy a humidifier for the darkroom, so I was thinking of buying a spray bottle (for plants) and fill it with distilled water. I could then easily spray the back side of the coated paper with water, and so increase the humidity and possibly the dMax. Sounds like a good idea?

Make a humidity chamber to humidify your coated paper. A simple one can be made by using two print processing trays, one larger than the other.

FIll the small tray with water and attach the coated paper to the inside surface of the larger printing tray. Set the larger tray over the small tray filled with water and leave it sit for about 30 minutes.

A better one can be made using a plastic container and attaching the paper to the inside surface of the top of the container. Using this kind of container will allow you to humifiy the paper more consistently.

You can also dissolve salt in the water to help raise the humidity higher.

Don Bryant

[timeUnit]

Hi Don,

I tried a similar approach based on your excellent advice, but I experienced that the paper dried out very quickly once it left the container. It is awfully dry in the darkroom right now, unfortunately. Do you use tape to attach the papers to the inside of the larger tray?

Perhaps I could use a combination of the two? Humifying the paper in a container before coating and then spraying a light mist on the back of the coated papers just before exposure?

[Loris Medici]

You may use a cheap ultrasonic humidifier. Cheap Chinese ones sell around USD 30 here in Istanbul, and are perfect for the job. (P.S. Be consistent in your humidification ritual!)

Regards,
Loris.