Altering the Kallitype Negative

There are times when adversity to a given procedure demands altering the procedure. Unless one has a larger cash fund for making things happen when desired. I have been working with a recalcitrant printer, once printing delicious negatives of pretty much any density I presented it. One sheet of plain paper changed that almost immediately, crunching up in the gears and damaging the print head. Two new replacement heads later, none of them work.

That being said I haven't given up on said printer, being there are new print heads available and they are extremely easy to replace. In the meantime, my efforts at building sufficient density on the negative are currently thwarted because the black in nozzle isn't firing, regardless of the threat thrown at it. That leaves me little choice at this juncture but to increase the spectral density to compensate. The negatives I have been using all have a level of spectral density in the negative image. I use the green tint function in Light Room for this. I will increase the use of this green density by 20%, as I am working towards a negative with a print time of ten to twelve minutes. I can just squeeze out eight to nine minute prints at this time. That adjustment in spectral density should, theoretically, add that minute or two to the print time. Again, theoretically.

What is important to notice here is the very fact that such adjustments can be made, which goes to show just how versatile black and white photography is. I refer to it as being malleable, able to reshape the outcome of a process by way of procedural manipulations along the way. As in any other black & white printing process, matching the density range of the negative to the tonal range potential of the printing medium is the task. In my case the printer isn't laying down black ink, with the three colors working fine. The next logical step is stepping up the spectral density. The printer does print green. Green is a density for this printing.

On another note, I have mentioned printing images of Native American Indians dancing their traditional dances at a Pow Wow held in Tucson some years ago. I have three such images, and have printed each of them a number of times. Each time returns the same flawed print. I have closely checked the negative for the anomaly seen in print image, without success at finding a visible reason for the flaw. Each and every print returns one, maybe two small, yet visible flaws of a tiny white line, like a hair of a brush was in the coating, although visual inspection of the coating never shows anything like this, yet there it is, in the print image. I know, the old legends of Native Indians not liking their images captured. I have no intention of giving up on this crusade to arrive at a finished print without flaw.

This image is like all the other images of Native American Indians dancing, one tiny flaw. So here it is, sans the flaw of course.

Palladium toned Kallitype
"Sacred Spirit Dance" 8x10
Tucson, Arizona

Kallitype Print ~ Again

I have printed this image probably close to ten times. In every print there is a flaw. Somewhere. I know that there are legends surrounding Native American Indians and their dislike for being photographed, although I am hard pressed to blame the continued flaws in this printed image, every time, and the only image I have this problem with, I leave it to "whatever".

Yes, I did digitally fix the flaw before posting. The print is junk so can't be exhibited, but thee is no reason it can't be shown as it would otherwise have been, sans said flaw, which was minor. Very minor. As in the other Kallitypes I have been printing I continue to use Revere Platinum paper. I'm very happy with that paper for hand coated printing.

This print was also developed in sodium citrate and cleared in an EDTA bath, then toned in palladium. All the prints in this portfolio are palladium toned.

Palladium toned Kallitype
"Spirit Dance" ~ 8x10 ~ unfinished print
Tucson, Arizona

Kallitype ~ During Construction

Nobody said this was going to be easy. The cleanup and repair of the water leak leaves me set up on a dining room table, finding cables and connectors to be able to continue the work of printing negatives and posting articles. The printer is still not printing as it did before the print head damage, but I have been able to wrangle the thing to print better than the Epson. Take what you can get.

I had attempted to print this image earlier, with some luck but the density range was more than what was needed for a good print. This negative was reprinted this morning, and with the lighter ink footprint, and, developing the print in sodium citrate instead of sodium acetate, also helped keep the image within print range, showing a decent black without blocking the middle tones, while printing in the highlights. This image could have been better served with one more minute print time.

Revere Platinum paper; developed in sodium citrate, cleared in EDTA, toned in palladium.
Print time 9 minutes;

Palladium toned Kallitype
"Hauling Freight" ~ 8x10 ~ 1/5
Tombstone, Arizona

Temporary Mayhem

My apologies for the breaks in the printing. That momentum continues to get disrupted. The printer head dysfunction stared it all, just before a water break and leak into my work space room, and that brought in various companies to do layers of tasks for mold & mildew spores, drying out wet carpet and the like. By the time that is resolved it will be another week or so.

The order of Pictorico acetate film somewhere between here and New York so I am unable to see if I can get sufficient ink on the film to make workable negatives. A lofty goal. I suppose ever worthwhile endeavor suffers setbacks and things that make a person lose sleep, but, in the end, I will prevail. Eventually.

Peace & Good Energy to readers

Gum Printing

The printing of "The Flute Player" continues, with the seventh color layer applied this morning. This was the first coat applied locally, to specific areas of the image where I wanted to influence that region alone, with that particular color layer. Again, each of these layers are very sheer and thinly applied. The denser the gum mixture of pigment, the less the detail in the image. Stands to reason. The denser the mixture, for most colors, the less translucent the layer, and the finer details will become lost behind the coating.

Theoretically, a fully printed gum can be achieved in four color layers, using the CYMK respective colors. The image won't be the same compared to the same printed image with fifteen sheer color layers. I will also note here that there are two camps of gum printers. Single negative printers and color separated negatives either in RGB or CYMK format; three negatives for the former and four for the latter. These days one doesn't need a service bureau for this task, with Photoshop, or in my case Corel's Paintshop Pro program, the original negative image is stripped into their respective Channels, then printed separately. The gum is printed in a chosen order, using the gum pigment color corresponding to each negative respectively.

The difference between the two, visually, is the RGB image, the colors have a more pastel appearance, much like the early color film of the forties and fifties. Nice look though. The CYMK stacked layers will be more realistic to today's color film, more vivid and saturated, as well as show more contrast (potentially) being it has the black layer to deepen the shadows and lower tonal range. I have one CYMK color separated image that I will get to, in time, to make such a gum image in four color runs. For now, I continue on the printing path I began thirty-five years ago when I took up gum printing. There is more leeway for a single negative method of gum printing, simply because one doesn't have to follow any rules for application.

I have written before on application techniques that control the outcome of the print, including paper/sizing, print time/float time, gum viscosity, sensitizer, UV source and others. Each one of those variables shapes the outcome of the final print image. Being that I print using the single negative method, there needs to be strategies for applying the color layers to arrive at an image that has some predictability for the outcome. For me. For those interested in amazing surprises at the finish line you will be pleased to know that this is certainly possible, with but a good sense of adventure and a calm demeanor when encountering unexpected outcomes.

Being nearly color blind to red/green, I have limitations is actually seeing the more subtle aspects of the print's colors. I have to rely upon the theoretical outcome of stacking various colors using subtractive color theory. Experience from lots of practice has taught me what I can, and can't get away with, and what it looks like when it's all done. There is no rule for staying within the lines when coating, or that one needs to coat the entire image. Speaking for my own personal approach, I tend to mix the coatings with full image coating as well as partial coating in certain areas. For me, that normally takes place after several coats have been applied to the entire image sufficiently that the image is basically there, just a bit light. That's when I begin working with areas I want to stand out in the image due to the final color effect, distinctively different than other areas, or the image in general.

The gum process can be said to have similarities to learning to play the piano. It is probably the easiest instrument to play, for a beginner, but the most difficult to master. The gum process is similar, being it is one of the simplest of the processes to understand, along with simple materials easily obtained as well as a printing process that is easy to do. Yet, gum printing is the most complex of all the historical processes to master. There are no boundaries or fences to restrict the printer's personal proclivities, sometimes referred to as "gesture"; loosely translated to refer to the printer's own style or "hand" in the process. If you look at Kallitype prints or Salt Paper prints or platinum/palladium prints you will see slight variations in the prints, like print color (warmer/cooler) or contrast differences, but unless one's work is widely recognized, it wouldn't be easy to differentiate between printers by the prints alone. There would be basic commonalities. Not so with gum printers.

The variations in printing style and technique of gum prints have observable differences between printers. The differences can be so striking as to appear to be from different mediums entirely. And that is the very open practical application of the process that allows the artistic freedom only available in this medium. Gum printers are probably the most loyal individuals to their process than those printing in other mediums. I'm sure that's probably an over generalization than reality, perhaps. Gum printing is one of the oldest of the historical processes, going back to the 18th century to a French chemist of sort, who realize dichromates hardened a colloid. Henry Fox Talbot moved things forward after a couple other early inventor types had added further connections to the process.

With the more recent publications on historical photographic processes, which have become sort of the printers bibles, the information continues to be widely available to anyone desiring to try their hand at photographic artistry. Gum prints are basically photographic watercolors. In those thick publications, covering every form of photography ever thought of or attempted, there are print examples of each of the mediums, as demonstration of what that might look like. The gum examples are few and from what I can gather, mostly printed for academic credit, yet there seems no further work by those students after graduation. Why is that?

For me, this is yet another indication that academic classroom/lab study of these processes are effective in teaching theory, and some practice for classroom credit. Why doesn't this not carry over beyond academic tenure? I has been my humble opinion all along that teaching photography academically through the classroom method works well, for commercial photography, Event photography, Wedding photography, photo-journalism and any other practical application of a photographic career. What I see as a miserable disaster and disappointment is the attempt to teach photographic "Art" classroom style, in theory. That rankles me, photographically speaking. But then, that's just probably me.

Final Image ~ Arizona Portfolio

There are now twelve print images in the Arizona Portfolio, including this last Kallitype that I just printed, twice. I say twice as I had been developing the Kallitypes in sodium acetate for the other images. For whatever reason, this particular image printed a very neutral gray/black, after toning in palladium. Can't come up with a decent reason for the shift, and I used my wife's eyes to confirm that. She sees the entire spectral range of colors.

I could have easily left it as it was, but that didn't sit well with my sense of artistic expression. It wasn't what I wanted. Today I reprinted the image, same negative, different developer. I mixed sodium citrate (20% sol), and it doesn't call for an acidic additive like tartaric acid, being it already is on the acid side (citrate). That shifted the image color to a nice warm toned image and after toning in palladium it remained warm toned, although the palladium did seem to cool the image just a smidgen.

Paper; I continue to print exclusively on Revere Platinum paper, as it is one of the best print papers for hand coated processes I have used, equal to Arches Platine paper, but at half the cost.
Developer; Sodium Citrate ~ 20% solution
Clearing Bath; EDTA ~ 3% solution

The rest of the clearing stages of the process, after toning, is the fixing stage, using 5% thiosulfate formula;

Water                                          @ 115 deg F             750ml
sodium thiosulfate                 (anhydrous)                    50g
sodium carbonate                   (anhydrous)                     10g
sodium sulfite                         (anhydrous)                       2g
Water           to make                                                   1000ml

There are other formulas for fixers for he use of hand coated processes, some use a 10% solution of thiosulfate. I have always used the 5% formula and have not had any problems with print durability. The portfolio of Salted Silver prints I made thirty years ago are still as pristine as when I matted them. For best archival practices it is a very good idea to put each print through two fixer baths, for five minutes each.

There is also another variable in the mix; toning. When a silver print is toned in gold (most formulas) the gold coats the silver particles, in metallic silver form, thereby adding to the longevity of the print. One gold toning formula is said to actually replace the metallic silver with the gold.Toning in palladium, or platinum, the more nobler metals replace the less noble metal (silver) thereby actually becoming a palladium, or platinum print, known a century ago as the "poor man's platinum". Platinum was very expensive back then as well. Technically, as long as you end up with a true platinum/palladium print in the end, it is just that.

After toning a silver print in palladium, most of the silver residue left over is much reduced, than if the same print sent into the fixer without toning. After toning, there is no longer the problem of "bleach back" effect, when the fixer bleaches out some of the image. To overcome that problem, printers merely overprinted the image by about one 10% or about one tonal shade, then the fixer merely reduced that sufficiently that the image is back to what was intended. Another intuitive maneuver of printing.

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

New Kallitype ~ Arizona Portfolio

Every time I get set up with a system for printing negatives, everything changes. I just set up the new Epson printer, which prints differently than the Kodak printer. Is irritating as that is, I must make do. this means going back and re-scaling the negatives to fit this printers proclivities. Although the negative I printed today functionally worked, it isn't yet where it needs to be for the print image I am after.

This is a street scene I hadn't printed before, or even made a negative of. It's been waiting in the print portfolio for months now. I continue to use Revere Platinum paper and sodium acetate as the developer; EDTA as the clearing agent. Print time for this image was 7 minutes.

Palladium toned Kallitype
"OK Corral Street Scene"
Tombstone, Arizona

Gum Mistakes ~ Consequences

This is not the article I had in mind, discussing the last gum print made. Overall, it was... okay, but then okay doesn't meet exhibition quality printing. I finally decided to add one more thin, very sheer layer of a translucent watercolor black. What I had said, over and over, about making a mistake on a gum, how it becomes junk. My instincts at this stage of printing are a bit lacking. The sheer black layer was not sheer enough. It merely masked everything below it to make it look more like an overprinted and muddy b&w print. Painful, that.

As painful as it may be, I have no choice to be start over, from scratch. Even re-masking the negative and preparing the paper, being that was the last sheet. The preparations for the paper takes three days. So, in about a week I'll have a few coats on the print, this time altering the color order to some degree, as well as altering the print time slightly. This negative has twice the density range as "The Flute Player". On the bright side of the ledger, I applied the third color to this print, and can say that it is coming along swimmingly. I am able to adjust the printing according to what I am finding with the earlier prints. The color layers are more sheer, and thin. The thinner the layers the better detail in the print, although, reciprocally, it takes more layers to add up to a fully printed image. Everything is a trade off.

Second Gum Print ~ Different Approach

The first gum print of "The Old Jerome Hotel" was put together in similar fashion to this print. The differences had to do with pigment saturation in the gum, order of color layering, and print time differences. I work to keep the float time between 2-5 minutes in a cold water batch. That allows for warming the water and or utilizing hand manipulation in areas if needed for further reducing a color layer in some specific area. I also work to scale the negative for a print time of 10 minutes for a 'full' print retention of all zones, including zone 7. This is important, being the only way to keep whites, white, and upper tones to keep or lose a color layer is control by the handshake between print time and float time.

I began both prints using Gouache Black, for deeper blacks in the shadows; zone 1. There is no discernible sky to have to protect, and most of the image is foliage of various stripes, including the female Maple that holds the swing. Being each print is unique, no A/P or copies of any kind, there is not do overs to see how things turn out, printed a different way. Unless the original print isn't to one's liking, then printing it again makes sense, as long as the first print is destroyed. For any confusion on this issue, each print I make, has a certificate of authenticity attached to it, disclosing all the details of the print, including how many prints are to be made. For a gum print, it is shown to be unique, based upon the image, not whether it is to be copied in another medium. Unique means unique.

On that certificate form is a listed sub-head which covers this specific topic. If the print being sold has any copies in any other medium, or size, it is to be disclosed there. There is usually no overlapping situations for my images, however, there are rare instances where I will want to print an image in gum and in palladium. Should I do that, it will be disclosed on both of the certificates, respectively. One such situation may be the image I have of "Adley on the Stump", a classical image that would be worthy in both mediums.

This gum print, like the first one, is printed on Fabriano 140# hot press watercolor paper; also the sizing and paper treatment were the same.
The color stacking was slightly different, working to bring out the foliage detail and end up with something that resembles the real deal, my way of seeing. I left the blue effect in the image as it cooled the image overall. It is not exactly how I had envisioned, but to arrive at a point whereupon the outcome is very close to original intentions, takes a lot of practice. Being these two prints were a beginning point, after thirty years since last printing.

Gum Dichromate Print
"The Swing"
Eugene, Oregon

Finished Gum Prints

So far I have been speaking in theory when it comes to gum printing, and now can show actual results, derived of the theory applied. I posted an image of each new gum after the first coating to give some perspective into how the image progresses. I don't post images of the gum as it goes through the coating layers due to the dichromate stain which masks the image in the first place.

As I wrote earlier, the gum process is very personal, and unique to each printer. The variables that the printer has at her disposal are numerous, all the way through the printing process. There simply is no 'standard' way of printing a gum. No matter what is said of it. Some of the variables for controlling the print include; intensity of pigment~ each print layer, order of the color layers for printing, shape of the contrast index curve of the negative, print time, float time, temperature of water, and additional manipulations during floating. An image can be printed ten different ways, and each would be a unique 'painting' of the image.

These gum prints were made on Fabriano 140# hot press watercolor paper;
Paper was pre-shrunk & dried, then sized twice with 2 1/2% gelatin, drying in between;
Coating went something like this; Gouache Black, magenta, yellow, cyan, a split coating of yellow and yellow ocher (two different areas of the print, to shift colors to green and brown, respectively), cyan again, and finally yellow.

I controlled the color of the sky, to a degree, using print time and float time to keep it clear for some of the coatings; sky is Zone 6, so I printed only to that tonal range and floated away anything left over. This was a more complex print due to the large contiguous area of the sky, which is expected, usually, to be somewhere in the realm of blue. It doesn't have to be, and nothing says you can't put color to specific areas of the image to enhance or alter the final color. That is the point of having the printing freedom of the gum process.

I have also commented on my color abilities, and the lacking thereof. I am also not any sort of digital software ninja master, so my controls and manipulations are corralled into a narrow slice of possibilities. My effort is to keep the posted image as absolutely close as I can get to an equal presentation of the original.

Gum Dichromate Print ~ 10 color layers
"The Old Jerome Hotel" ~ 8x10 ~ Unique
Jerome, Arizona

Gum Printing ~ New Territory

After two weeks with the printer in the computer shop having a print head installed, with two new ordered print heads both failing, along with a lengthy soaking of the original print head, nothing works. It just isn't going to give up any ink. Without negatives I can't print. So I ordered an Epson Stylus C88+ printer, with the hopeful arrival by week's end. I have little to show for new printed images. What I was able to accomplish in today's print session were three Kallitypes for the Arizona Portfolio. I have posted those images in recent posts, however one print had a printing flaw and the other two were overprinted on the first run. For reference, should anyone be interested, the three prints were; "Miller's Store", "Doc Holliday" and "Main Street Tombstone".

What is new are the two gum prints. Gum printing demands a lot of intuitive skill, along with a good grasp of subtractive color theory. After eight print layers they looked theoretically correct, to what was imagined. That viewing is done with the dichromate stain still very evident. Being mostly color blind to red/green, "seeing" the finished colors through yet another interceding color isn't as easy as it sounds. I discovered this after clearing the prints in a bath of 5% sodium bisulfite. The dichromate yellow disappears, leaving what you thought you had right in front of you.

That happened to turn out a bit off, with the blue layer dominating everything underneath. That means, theoretically, that the underlying yellow layer wasn't dominant enough, and, the blue layer was too heavy with pigment. As I said, gum printing is more intuitive than formulamatic. My word. After thirty years, the intuitive part needs exercising. At this point I am in uncharted territory, being I have never attempted to continue printing on a gum after it has been cleared. That was then. I've decided to continue shifting the color range back to what I had intended for the one image, which is mostly made up of foliage, so I am looking for variations on green. To arrive at that I added a coat of Cadmium Yellow. Thin coat, with a shear yellow. Each print got the same treatment, with different print times.

The print with the foliage got full print time to print into all tonal levels, which it did, shifting the image to the green I was looking for, mostly. Once the print is fully dried and studied under light, I will be looking for the green affect at different tonal levels to see if another shear layer of Magenta might be beneficial. That would shift the primary color slightly to the brownish side for much of the image, depending on the print time. Half to three quarter print time and a bit lengthier float time would keep that magenta influence on the lower tonal range, functionally up to Zone 5.

To keep the issue clear, there is nothing that says one can't continue printing a gum after clearing it in a bisulfite bath. That doesn't alter the image, nor the paper. It merely clears out the dichromate stain. For me, most gum prints need at least six layers to begin adding the details in a photo realistic way, although, that isn't a hard and fast rule. I have printed two color (duo-tone) gums that have turned out quite nicely, looking like a warm black and white print. Although the image was fairly sharp as far as tonal separation was concerned the detail wasn't as evident because I used a thicker color mixture so as to have a solid image after only two layers. It all comes down to understanding the process through practice, until the intuition begins to take over. Then the process isn't difficult at all.

Palladium Print ~ Tombstone

The second image printed "Looking down Main Street", is another view of Tombstone's main street from across the street, looking back. Both shots were captured during a very brief spell in tourist activity. The trade off for me was either having the streets peopled in the scene, which would be expected of a town, unless it was a ghost town, or, a more historical look at a historical town, sans people. No need to say which way I went with that either/or battle.

Both of these prints were printed on Revere Platinum paper. Having used Arches Platine for numerous images I find the Revere paper equally effective for hand coated printing in precious metals. I am using the standard 10% silver to 20% oxalate coating mixture, and developing in sodium acetate, the 'black' developer. Sodium citrate is the warm brown developer. There are others, if you like the plum color range or sepia look. I'm using EDTA for the clearing bath instead of citric acid, as it is a better agent to clear the ferric iron in the paper.

As a side note; sodium acetate is also a developer for palladium prints, at a slightly higher concentration, as is sodium citrate, theoretically affecting the palladium salts in a similar way as they would with silver, for color. EDTA is the clearing agent for palladium prints, therefore, shifting between Kallitype printing and palladium printing is not a difficult matter, being the negative characteristics for both mediums remains roughly equal.

Palladium toned Kallitype
"Looking down Main Street"
Tombstone, Arizona

New Paladium Print

There is usually always resistance to any given endeavor, good or bad. I am still awaiting the arrival of the sodium bisulfite for the clearing bath needed to clear the dichromate stain from the gum prints. Can't do much until it arrives. I also continue to wait for my printer repair, having a new print head installed. After almost two weeks, and two new print heads ordered and installed, both proved to be defective. The nice man at my computer shop soaked my old print head overnight just in case it proves effective in clearing up the black nozzle, which is the one not firing. Time will be the arbiter of how that turns out.

Without means of clearing the two finished gum prints, and no printer to print new negatives, I reprinted two Kallitypes that I've been working on for the Arizona Portfolio. Both negatives for these images were printed after the problem with the print head, coming out too thin to be functionally viable for silver printing. The Kallitype process enhances the outcome adding a bit of contrast and deepening the blacks. A coating error on my part showed up in the one print in the form of an area where the sensitized solution wasn't fully coated in one circular area. Center of the lamppost of course. Both of the negatives for these images will be reprinted once I have a functioning printer again.

When photographing Tombstone proper, for this portfolio, I have taken much care in capturing the historical aspect of the town, hopefully capturing some of the local participant actors representing characters of historical nature as well, without the inclusion of modernity when possible. That required several trips to Tombstone, spending hours in patient wait for just the right moment to accomplish this task. It was worth the wait, as I have over a dozen images to print for this portfolio, along with a few images from the historic town of Jerome, Arizona.

Palladium toned Kallitype
"Main Street Tombstone" ~ 8x10 (unfinished print)
Tombstone, Arizona

Finished Gum Prints

There is good news and other news. Good news being the two gum prints I've been working on ended up being finished the same day, even though one of the prints required two more coats than the other. In both images I split the print colors, this time two colors each, applied locally, to enhance and add too the layers beneath, without also affecting an area where such color isn't desired. "Seeing" the culmination of said color stacking is only partially evident during the printing process due to the overall yellow color of the image from the dichromate in the mix.

And that brings us to other news. It has been many years since I printed gums, and forgot a minor detail get by me. Sodium bisulfite. A cheap and easily obtained chemical. It is a 5% solution of sodium bisulfite that is the clearing bath which washes away all the sodium dichromate stain from the print. At that time all the colors become visible, most of which are subtle colors, compared to the world of saturated color images. The structural part of the image came out well, and the detail is good, and will get better once the dichromate stain is gone.

Posting an image of an unfinished gum print or one with dichromate stain would be something akin to blasphemy, and misleading so I won't be posting the gums until they have been cleared and cried. Already I have sat and stared at both images, one at a time of course, thinking of all the variations I could have utilized during the printing stages. There are so many possibilities for printing a gum the permutations of which would be a very vast number. Like how many possible ways to shuffle a deck of cards or number of atoms that make up Earth. Large number. That's why I wait.

Mechanics of Gum Printing

Having talked about the more aesthetic aspect of gum printing it would be helpful for those anticipating gum printing to have a grasp of the procedural aspects of the medium. Controlling image over many layers of color additions is one aspect of the printing. Controlling how the image sits on the paper is another aspect. As I noted in an earlier article on the subject, the pre-shrinking and sizing of the paper is absolutely necessary, as there is a sort of handshake between the level of sizing, and the gum mixture itself that controls how the image sits on the supporting paper.

As noted, the sizing was 2 1/2% gelatin soaked into the paper for 30 seconds to one minute. Twice. That is a different outcome of just sizing the paper once with 5% sizing. The best match I've found to that sizing formula is a gum mixture of 50%. That would be roughly twice the thickness of the liquid 14 baume gum mixture sold on the market. Baume is the measure of viscosity, or thickness to a liquid heavier than water. Distilled water is 0 on the scale; said gum being 14. I know gum mixtures as a percentage being I mix my own gum liquid. At one time I was able to secure raw gum as beautifully clear chunks. Best gum Arabic possible. Now, that is only sold in palates or 100 Kilo bags. Enough raw gum to keep every gum printer in the world in gum for the rest of their lives.

I don't imagine any reader would need to ask how one arrives at a 50% mixture of gum, but, one never knows, so it goes like this. I use a pint sized clear plastic storage jar with plastic lid for this. Being that said gum will be purchased these days in powder form, the process is simplified from tying up raw gum in cloth then suspending it in water, to keep the sticks and twigs and other impurities from also getting to the finished gum mixture, to simply pouring the [distilled] water in the vessel before pouring in the measured gum powder.

100 ml Distilled water placed in a vessel with lid ~ 50g of powdered gum Arabic poured in and stirred until all the powdered gum is wetted. Put the lid on and let it sit for a day, usually, unless it's cold, which will take a bit longer.

100 ml worth of gum Arabic mixture will make probably six 8x10 gum prints, on average, and I multi coat each gum. I use two eyedropper draws of gum and two dichromate eyedropper draws for each coating for an 8x10 print. You will notice that the gum mixture will draw higher into the eyedropper than the thinner dichromate mixture. Lessening the dichromate retards printing sensitivity, hence the need for a longer print time to compensate. I eyeball the different levels and draw a bit more dichromate to add to the two, to make up for the differences. The vast majority of any gum print I do will have at least six layers, more likely 8-10 and some will get fifteen layers, perhaps some day reaching even more.

Also note that gum Arabic can 'spoil' as it is mostly used in the food industry as an additive, and it will  spoil. To keep this from happening, formalin is used. Formalin is a weak mixture of Formaldehyde. Formaldehyde generally comes at about a 37% solution, which is then reduced to a 10% solution; from Formaldehyde to Formalin. Use about 1 drop per 5ml of gum mixture as a preservative. It works quite well. The  final part of the procedural process is brushing the gum onto the paper. I have tried different brushes and found an artist's brush remains the best for smooth coating, no streaks. The problem being artist brushes start very small and reach about 1" or so wide. For an 8x10 print that is workable. I have used that for awhile now. But it does necessitate working swiftly before the gum becomes sticky and begins to streak.

What I have found, and used a couple times now, is an artist's "Dye" brush set. Cheap too, at around $8 for the set. Apparently a dye brush is definitely wider than most artist brushes and the bristles are not exactly taper cut as the artist brush but works admirably for this process. The larger of the two brushes is a good 2" wide and I am able to smoothly brush all the poured gum mixture out over the image area in less than 15 seconds. Plenty of time before the tackiness arrives.

Also note that a gum printer will want more than one brush in the tool kit. There is no rule that says the entire image area has to be coated each time. Nor is there any limit on the array of colors one can add to the print image each printing. Just because a single black and white negative is being used for the process, doesn't mean there is a limitation to the outcome of the print image. Advanced gum printing includes individual object coloring, sometimes with an tonal array of colors. The leaves in the trees in "The Quiet Pond" image were each colored by hand, with a very tiny artist's brush, using six color variations of yellow and green, respectively. Gum printing isn't just coating a print over and over.

Interested gum printers wanting to learn the art of this process will realize these articles are a primer on how this art form is more fully realized. The number of successful gum printers today, in the world, is a very small, esoteric group of individuals. To be able to continue this tradition of printing, one of the oldest known photographic process, about the age of salt paper printing, is to me a pilgrimage of sorts. Keeping an old and beautiful form of photographic art alive, and hopefully expanding upon the original applications. Simply google Edward Steichen gum prints to see where this process began, and where printers can take it today.

Building the Gum Print

Another color layer was printed each new gum print this morning, respectively. A Phthalo Blue, about the color of a clear blue sky, if mixed correctly, was added to the Old Jerome Hotel print, with the design of adding to the orange/yellow shades left from the earlier two coats, leaving brown/green. The trickier part to this image is the sky. The idea is leaving a blue sky, without the orange or yellow coloring. This is important being subtractive color theory, which would then leave the sky brown and green in places. This is where the print time is important. The sky is somewhere in the zone 6-7 area, and I have been keeping the print times down to 10 minutes for the two earlier colors, and 5 minutes for the black run. This is to keep those colors within a predictable tonal range. The float time is the second tool you have to remove the gum from zone 8 downwards, one tonal range at a time. Reverse of silver gelatin printing considerations.

The image is printing in well so far. The details and texture is beginning to make headway, adding more each layer. I keep away from heavy coating, as in a lot of pigment per layer. This is contrary to arriving at any detail or texture, just dark colors overlain one another. Not my type of gum printing. When the gum print is finished, it should be basically photo quality, as far as tonal separation and detail is concerned. To achieve that necessitates many thin layers of color, stacked deep enough to add up to a rich depth in the image, leaving detail and hopefully a textural feel. This isn't theory, completely. I have gum prints to back this up, although the gums I'm printing at this time far exceed what I was able to print thirty years ago. Back then I couldn't afford film for the Burke & James 5x7 so cut up sheets of Kodak or Ilford bromide grade 2 printing paper, rated at 6ASA (back then) through a 300mm enlarger lens. No shutter of course, so I used a chemical bottle lid, which fit the lens nicely, and set up shots that needed 3-5 seconds, at the least. I still have a good stack of such negatives, as well a few of the gums I printed at the time. The last print I made back then is made up of thirteen color layers, with some localized work as well. I should also note that paper negatives contact print just as well as a film negative. Slightly slower print time, that's all.

Paper used; Arches 140# Hot Press
Pre-shrunk @ 120 degs ~ 
2 coats of sizing ~ Knox Gelatin   2 1/2% solution @ 110 degs
13 printed color layers

Gum Dichromate Print
"The Quiet Pond" ~ 5"x7" ~ Unique
Eugene, Oregon