Test Print ~ Palladium toned Kallitype

As I mentioned before, I find the Kallitype process to my liking, more than salted silver, although I have made a number of really nice salted silver prints. The Kallitype uses a iron binder mixed with the silver solution at the time of printing, unlike the salt paper process where the salt (iron) binder is attached to the print paper by soaking it in a salt solution before drying, before later printing. The Kallitype process is almost exactly like the platinum/palladium printing process. Both use a ferric oxalate as the binder in equal amount to the silver/platinum/palladium solution; 10%/20%/15% respectively.

The Kallitype formula I have picked up uses 10% solution of silver, which has proven to be very effective. That, mixed with a 20% solution of ferric oxalate in equal amount then brushed on the printing paper. I use Arches Platine pretty much exclusively for Kallitypes. The full Kallitype process is laid out in detail under "Processes" right side of the blog page next to article listing. I only single coat the Kallitypes, thus far, with the problem of removing all the ferric iron in the paper being difficult. I have also come to learn that there is a better chemical for this job than the Citric Acid this formula calls for. That would be EDTA (Tetrasodium Salt) used in Pt/Pd printing to clear the print after development, same as Kallitype. My understanding is that EDTA can be used in the Kallitype process.

That brings up another quality of the two processes that I will be experimenting with. Both processes use ferric oxalate as the iron binder. For Pt/Pd the solution is 27%. For Kallitype (silver) it is 20%. The developing agents for Pt/Pd are ammonium citrate, and sodium citrate, which is also used in the Kallitype, this developer being a warm tone or brown shade for both processes. The different developers create the primary print color due to their reaction with the metallic salts. I prefer to use the black developer for Kallitype prints as it sets up a good deep dMax black in the lower tones which then remain deep black after toning with palladium, bringing the warm tones to the print.

This Kallitype print was developed in the black developer; sodium acetate & tartaric acid, and cleared in citric acid before toning in palladium. One of the attributes of the Kallitype is that the print is developed after printing out. This is not totally unique to Kallitype in silver, as a salt paper print can be developed out, just like a Kallitype, with exception to not then needing to be cleared, as in a Kallitype. Likely because the binder is in the paper. That would be a guess though. What that comes down to is that when you develop out a printed out print, the image is not fully printed in before development. In the case of a salt paper print, using Gallic acid calls for a print out time of 1/3rd standard print time. For Rodinal development it calls for 1/5th print time.

That means you won't see any detail above probably Zone 4, maybe Zone 5 before development. I am not used to that, printing in salt paper. This is new and remains a bit bizarre to my senses, yet. This image for this print was mostly prepared in Lightroom, using the slides for the visually inspected density assignments I put to each density range, before toning the negative green. I always work with an image I will be printing, in its negative form. This was close, however being I boosted the densities as well as added the green tone, it took some time to print it down. This print was a 20 minute print, with only the lower half of the tonal range printed in. I have come to know what happens when the print time exceeds 20 minutes. It isn't good.

Palladium toned Kallitype ~
8"x10" ~ "Sacred Dance"