Arriving at a Print Time

All hand printers know that the print time for the medium being used is a most important part of the printing process. When I first began printing in hand coated mediums, I had only the sun for printing. Now, with a Solar Printer on hand half the equation has been formalized. The other half of course has to do with the negative. Ultimately, it is the density range that conforms to a hand coated medium characteristics that shapes the finished print. Nothing new.

The first hand coated process I learned was the salt paper process. It is the most straight forward and simplest of most other mediums. It is a printing out process, which allows full inspection all along the way, until the desired image is at hand, before further processing. For whatever reason I had back then, I settled on a very long scaled negative, as is usually the accepted view view; using a negative with a density range of Log 1.2 to 1.8. For the salt paper process such a negative prints best with a salted paper of 2 1/2% salt solution and 13% silver solution (my formula). I still have the portfolio of those fifteen prints, all untoned and as pristine as when they were printed.

The new reality being simply that with the use of digital negatives and the printer I have, reaching the equivalent of a Log 1.2 or higher negative is apparently not going to happen. What has become apparent is the the negatives I have printed, using the spectral density in the image, work well with a 10% silver solution, which happens to be the solution used in a Kallitype. Thus far, all the new prints from the new negatives have been Kallitype prints, for good reason. They all print at 7 minutes and end up with a full rich tonal range.

This of course indicates I have a print time for those negatives printed as Kallitypes. It also indicates that it is in my best interest to shift my salted paper formula to the 10% silver solution, beginning with 1 1/2% salted paper. That will roughly match the Kallitype printing range, better fitting the thinner negatives.

Most of the images in the Arizona Portfolio were digital images to begin with. The images of Jerome were shot with my Burke & James 5x7. All the images were printed using digital negatives. The developer I am using is the (black) sodium acetate developer.

Palladium toned Kallitype
"Barrel on Main Street" ~ 8x10 ~ 1/5
Tombstone, Arizona