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Image fading with Argyrotype
Hello People,
I have been experimenting with Argyrotype lately and have found out that
choice of paper is indeed of major importance to the succes of this silver
process.
I have used the folloing paper:
-arches platine *
-arches aquarelle (plain & sized with gelatine)
-rives BFK*
-whatman watercolor (mat surface)*
-simili japon
The papers i found to work well were arches aquarelle (plain without extra
sizing) and simili japon. The others (*) lost image substance in the wash to
such an extend, that the final image was very pour indeed.
The simili japon paper did loose some image during the wash but not much
(one drop of tween 4% greadly improved coating and image lose during washing
was much less than without tween). The fixing bath (2% sodium thio sulfate,
hypo for short) turned the image to a beautiful rich brown without any
further image loss. After drying the d-max was very good, without stained
highlights.
The arches aquarelle did not show any image loss during the first wash and i
was already celebrating until...... i poured in the fixer (2% hypo) The
image starded to wash out almost direct, turning the fixer brown with
collodial silver! I kept the time in the fixer very short an the final image
was not bad but, without the very high d-max as seen with the simili japon
paper.
By the way after final wash i alway tone in plain tetanal gold toner for
permanese and because i like the tone it gives (pink/brown/black).
The fact is, i like the surface of the arches aquarelle more than the simili
japon (it's more smooth) so i have the folloing questions:
-Can i reduce the percetage hypo (say 0.5 %) in the fixerbath to avoid image
loss with the arches paper during the fixing, if i use the fixer one-shot
(as i already do by the way)?
-would gold toning after the first wash, but before fixing, make any
difference? (some articles i read put the gold toning before fixing, while
others gold tone after fixing. is there a difference?).
This has gotten to be a longer story than i expected, and i thank you all in
advance for reading and youre much apreciated input and suggestions.
Greetings from the Netherlands,
Gerard de Vrueh