The Silver Processes

For many photographers who want to make hand coated prints, Silver becomes the standard for the simple reason it is affordable for most of those photographers. As noted in an earlier post, the cost for printing with the more noble metals is, as always, very expensive. There is the caveat to that, simply being that having prints made of platinum/palladium makes them far more rare and therefore worth more, assuming one is able to sell their prints.

I will be writing on the platinum/palladium process at a future date. That will be when I am actually printing in one of those metals, most likely palladium, perhaps with a drop or two of platinum to enrich the blacks. Before that happens I will be using palladium as a toner for the salted silver prints I'll be making first. My style is writing about what you are doing and accomplishing rather than on hypothetical or theoretical possibilities that one could do. Not easy to show images of a theoretical possibilities.

Silver is the topic for now, and there are several hand coated processes using silver worth noting. I will be noting those processes I have actually printed with and can speak of with some certainty. Those two processes I'll be dealing with are Salted Silver (Salt Paper) and the Kallitype. There are several basic iron/salt to silver processes historically; Salt Paper, Kallitype, Van Dyke Brown, Argyrotype and Albumen. Roughly in that order of discovery and use.

The difference between an Argyrotype and a Kallitype is the iron based binder used. With Argyrotype it is ferric ammonium citrate, with the Kallitype it is ferric ammonium oxalate. The Kallitype was preferred because the oxalate binder allowed for deeper blacks (Dmax) over the Argyrotype and the Van Dyke Brown, another cousin, which got its name from the painter of that name. The Albumen came last and one might say, the precursor to the printing paper that would come a bit later. Kodak had a large part to play in that. Albumen added the bonus of having the smooth surface with the silver suspended therein, making a beautiful image. Albumen of course is egg whites prepared meticulously with the silver solution. No, I have not attempted that process yet. Perhaps in the future.

Two things to know about hand coated printing. First, the negative need be ever so much denser than the standard negative for projection enlargement. I have brought this up more than once. Secondly, the Kallitype process is all but identical to the Platinotype print. The difference is primarily between the silver and Pt/Pd needs, as in fixing and toning. Silver yes to both, Pt/Pd there is not need. The negative density first. Earlier I wrote of density range differences for projection enlargement and hand coated printmaking needs. The reader can look that up for specifics. Here I want to simply say that a negative that can print well on a salted silver print will also do splendidly on a platinum/palladium print. I use the platinum/palladium reference instead of just one, is simply that most printing using those metals mix them for optimal visual effect as well as cost considerations, and, they both can be printed separately with the process remaining exactly the same.

The simplest of the processes in elements is the salt paper. Simply a piece of paper soaked in a weak (1%-3% ~ binder) solution of table salt then dried. Then a silver solution (10%-12%) is brushed onto the paper before contact printing using a UV light source. Back then it was the sun. Where I diverged from the above formula, as formulated today, was the silver solution which I mixed saturated; at 13%. I used the offered mixing formula as shown in "The Keepers of Light", with my salt binder solution at 2 1/2%. That is the formula used for the salted silver images I have been posting, from a portfolio printed those thirty years ago. It works, well.

Salted Silver Print ~ "Old Jerome Bakery Ovens"
1985 ~ 5"x7" ~ Unique
Jerome, Arizona