Bromide Printing and Enlarging Part 3

Sodium sulphide is sold in various degrees of purity, and the label on the bottle is not always in exact correspondence with the condition of the substance inside, but the two forms which must be adhered to for sulphide toning are the ordinary "pure" and the "pure for a.n.a.lysis." The former can be obtained from any reliable drug store or photographic dealer. It comes in small lumps, yellowish to greenish in color; when dissolved in water the solution will be yellow, and will usually show a deposit which must be filtered off. This sulphide will give tones which are sepia brown with most papers. In the case of the "pure-for-a.n.a.lysis" sulphide, which is the recrystallized variety, the salt will be pure white and will form a quite colorless and clear solution in water. The tone given by this kind of sulphide is usually of a more purplish color. The distinct difference between the two commercial varieties of sulphide should not be overlooked, as it allows the worker to modify the process usefully when dealing with papers differing (as all papers do) to a slight extent in their adaptability to sulphide toning. The purer form has certainly much better keeping properties than the other, but either, if made up in 20 per cent solution, keeps for a month or two at least--which is enough for all purposes. The chief difference between the two is noticed in the diluted or working solutions. That of the purest sulphide _may_ be kept and used again, though it is not really good policy to do so.

The supply of sulphide should therefore be dissolved as soon as purchased, as follows: _Stock sulphide solution_--20 per cent; sodium sulphite 4 ounces; water to make 20 ounces. The actual toning solution is made up at the time of treating the prints by mixing the above stock with water, as follows: _Sulphide toning bath._--Stock 20 per cent solution 3 ounces; water to make 20 ounces.

This makes a bath which contains about one per cent real sulphide, corresponding with about a 3 per cent solution of the sulphide as purchased. If the bath is much weaker, the tone obtained is usually not quite so good; while, if it is stronger, there is danger of the print's blistering while toning, or afterward in the washing water. Indeed, some papers need to be toned in a weaker bath, and require also to be fixed in an alum-hypo fixing bath (see later), so that the strength of the toning bath given above may be taken as the maximum, and used at half or one-third strength, as circ.u.mstances show to be necessary. And, to repeat the caution once more, the toning bath is to be thrown away as soon as the prints have been pa.s.sed through it. With these points in our mind as to the making up of the solution, we can come to the process proper.

The prints require to be well washed and free from hypo before being placed in the bromide-ferricyanide bleacher, because any hypo in conjunction with the ferricyanide will form the well-known Farmer's reducer, and cause patchiness of the prints. It is immaterial whether the prints are taken direct through the toning process or dried in the meantime. Some workers contend that the toning process is more regular if the prints are dried before bleaching. In either case, immersion in the bleacher will cause the fully developed bromide to disappear, leaving only a faint brown image behind. In some cases the image is fainter than in others, the difference appearing to depend chiefly on the developer employed. Developers with a liability to stain will give prints which do not bleach out so completely as those made with cleaner working developers. But, in all cases, two to three minutes' action of the bleaching solution will be ample; if all pure black is not gone in this time, it is a sign that the bleach is becoming exhausted. The prints should be kept constantly on the move whilst in the solution, and turned over and over to ensure equal action. They are then given quite a brief rinse in running water--half a minute to a minute--and then transferred to the sulphide solution, where they should darken to the full brown or sepia tone in a few seconds. It is well always to leave them here for twice to three times the period required to give the full tone. A wash of half an hour will remove the salts left in the film.

Granted that bleacher and sulphide are in proper working order, there is one further factor in the making of sepia prints which is of vital importance, and that is the proper preparation of the print itself. A good sulphide tone presupposes a good black and white bromide. Not only that, defects in the bromide which may lie latent while the print is untoned come to light in the sulphide bath. This applies to uneven fixation (due to omission to keep prints moving in the hypo bath) and fingering of the surface; while, as regards the original development of the print, making the best of a wrong exposure will not do when sulphide toning is in view.

A print that is forced by long development will suffer in tone, the result being colder and less satisfactory as regards vigor. Full exposure, and development which is complete in the normal time for a perfect black print, are the conditions for a good sepia tone, and, when a batch of prints is being put through, it is well to take steps to preserve a uniform time of development in order to secure an identical tone throughout.

There are many different formulas for the uranium toning of bromide prints, and I suppose that most of them have given good results with the workers who published their methods. Of those which I have tried, however, none has yielded the results which I have been enabled to obtain from my own formula--my own in that I arrived at it by patient experimenting. It may be that this formula is not wholly original with myself. At any rate, I do not claim anything for it except that it works, with me, better than others I have tried.

The requirements for toning bromide prints with uranium are: 1 ounce of uranium nitrate; 1 ounce of pota.s.sium ferricyanide (the red crystals); 1/2 pound bottle of acetic acid--c. p. glacial preferred; water; a supply of blotting paper, to be kept exclusively for this purpose, and a few absolutely and chemically clean trays.

The expense attached to these toning processes is slight. Uranium nitrate costs from forty to sixty cents per ounce, and an ounce will last a long time. Pota.s.sium ferricyanide costs about twenty cents per pound, and a pound is ample for a lifetime. Glacial acetic acid is a little more costly, but a half-pound bottle will prove a good investment. It is used also, as the reader will recall, in making acid hypo for acid fixing.

To prepare the toning baths, dissolve the ounce of uranium nitrate in 10 ounces of water. The water should be distilled if this is easily obtainable, and the solution should be kept in an orange-gla.s.s bottle or an ordinary bottle protected from light by a non-actinic paper wrapping.

Dissolve the ounce of pota.s.sium ferricyanide in 10 ounces of water. Keep this also in an orange-gla.s.s bottle, well corked. There are many cautions about this particular salt, and it has been said that it will not keep in solution. In my practice I find no difficulty whatever in the use of a solution six months old, despite the difficulties mentioned in the text-books.

To tone the bromide prints, first note that the prints should have been developed and fixed and washed just as usual. It is necessary that prints to be toned shall contain no trace of hypo. To secure this, the prints should be specially prepared for toning by being again thoroughly washed, as any hypo remaining in the print will cause spots and streakiness. With care at this stage the toning will give clean and bright prints, which should be as permanent as the original bromide print.

I cannot give the reason why, but, as a general rule, bromide prints tone better if the print has been dried after washing and rewet just before toning. There may be a chemical reason for this, but I am inclined to think that it is a physical one, viz., that the emulsion is softer after its first washing than after having been dried and wet, so that it allows toning solution to get into the film more quickly. This naturally results in more rapid toning, and quick toning does not yield as good prints as a slower and more gradual building up of the color image.

Having the print ready for toning as here outlined, take 1 dram of the uranium solution, add 1/2 dram of acetic acid and then 5 ounces of water.

In a separate graduate put 1 dram of ferricyanide solution and 5 ounces of water. Just before toning, pour these two solutions together into the third graduate and use immediately. To proceed, lay the rewetted print face up in a clean tray and flow the freshly made toning bath (the two solutions combined) over the print. The print and tray must be kept in motion by gentle rocking during the toning operation. The toning solution tends to throw a red precipitate as it works. This precipitate should not be permitted to settle on the face of the print. Some workers tone their prints face down, but I do not advocate this, as it is important to take the print from the toning bath at just the right moment, and, as the toning process is short (six or seven minutes is usually sufficient even for the deepest red) you need to watch the print all the time. In the toning operation note that a constant quiet motion of the tray, to keep the solution moving over the print, is essential to success.

I have already given, in an earlier paragraph, the order in which the colors come. But that order was for a normal print. Some prints behave differently, and it is in the control of these unavoidable variations with different prints that skill and success come. A print of a half-tone subject against a jet-black background, a portrait, for instance, will hardly follow the normal order in the appearance of colors. This because the half-tones will be brown and even red-brown before the toning solution has changed the dense black deposit of the background at all. If the toning was stopped at this stage, some very pretty effects in double toning might result.

From this explanation of the toning process, the discerning reader will perceive the need for caution in selecting the best kind of a print for uranium toning. Thus a print which has a bald-headed sky will tone only in the body of the print, but if there is any tint at all to the sky, it also will tone, giving an effect not much to be desired except for sunset or sunrise pictures. If white high-lights are desired in the toned print, they must be white originally and not the least bit fogged. As double-toned effects in a print are not usually desirable, those prints having deep black shadows or dark ma.s.ses will be avoided. The best kind of print for this method of toning is one fully exposed and slightly under-developed, since, when the uranium does take hold of the shadows, it makes for an increase of contrast.

Experience is the best teacher, and I could not begin to describe in detail what the reader can himself ascertain from a few experiments. Some prints needing contrast should be carried far in the toning solution; others, not needing contrast, will give better results if they are toned only through the browns, and so on. The reader who can spend a Sat.u.r.day afternoon with a few bromide prints, varying in character, will learn more from his experimenting than I could tell him in many pages. For these experiments waste or imperfect black prints can be used with practical economy, the chief object being to watch the progress of toning and chemical changes.

When the desired tone is reached, remove the print from the toning solution and wash quickly and well in running water for fifteen minutes.

If washed too long, the color of the print will fade and a dead and lifeless print will result. If not washed long enough, the yellow of the ferricyanide will remain in the print, robbing its gradations of brightness and purity of color and impairing the permanency of the print.

A big advantage in this method of toning is its wonderful adaptability.

There is no hard and fast rule as to the proportion of the chemicals to the bulk of water used. Try two drams of each of the two solutions; then three drams of each, but watch that the print does not get beyond you in toning. The only practical difference in my formula and others that I have seen is that I make my stock solution weaker than that ordinarily advised and use less of it to a certain amount of water, because I prefer slow toning and the accompanying ease of control which the flash-in-the-pan formula does not admit. Quick toning, like quick development, tends to block the shadows in the print, and if you once get bronzed shadows the print is practically hopeless. Not quite ruined, however, as a bath in a 5 per cent solution of sodium carbonate will discharge the color and then, if the print is faded, it may be redeveloped in an alkaline developer such as metol-hydro. But before it is retoned the print must be thoroughly washed, as the presence of sodium carbonate does not permit the toning solution to do its work.

Finally, I may say that, while a bath of acetic acid and water is often advised to stop the toning action in this method, I have never found it necessary.

All the thin varieties of bromide paper curl badly in drying. If they are to be kept unmounted it is well to immerse them in water to which has been added a few drops of glycerine. This will ensure their lying flat after drying. A solution of 2 ounces of glycerine in 25 ounces of water is advised when it is desired to make bromides on heavy rough paper remain flat, after drying, for book ill.u.s.tration and similar purposes.

If one is trying to rush through a bromide print, it can be trimmed while wet by placing it on a sheet of stiff paper and cutting through both.

The paper will be found to c.o.c.kle the mounts badly in drying. Aside from the glue mountant, formula for which accompanies the paper, I know no preventive except to mount the prints while dry with the dry mounting tissue. As the paper when wet stretches one way considerably, as much as a third of an inch on a ten- or twelve-inch length, provision must be made in tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, especially if mounts with centers of a given size are used.

The paper being covered with an emulsion which in warm weather is very soft while wet, mounting is somewhat more difficult than with some of the other papers. My method is to mount not more than half a dozen at once, placing them face down, one on top of the other, on a gla.s.s or ferrotype plate, blotting off the surface water and spreading the paste over the top one in the usual way. I place this on the mount and then stretch over it smoothly a damp handkerchief or piece of very thin rubber cloth, rubbing the print down with my hands, seldom using the squeegee and then very lightly. By this method abrasion of the surface seldom results and air-bells are unknown. Owing to the strong contracting power of the paper in drying, the mounting paste must be used freely, especially at the edges of the print.

Apart from the methods of procedure here given, there are innumerable modifications covering every detail of contact printing and enlarging on bromide paper. Most of these have been given careful trial as published, but few have quite fulfilled the expectations they created.