"Vase and Shadow" ~ Gold toned Kallitype

 I have been printing mostly warm toned images since I began printing again five years ago; give or take. I have long held a preference for warm toned prints, as I simply found them more aesthetically pleasing; to my eye anyway. The palladium printing feel into that catagory, as do the palladium toned Kallitype prints I've been making. I will say here that one of the impetuses for shifting to a cool toned print is becoming ever more desirable with the price of palladium now basically equal to platinum, which comes out to $10/ml, which equates to an expensive printing cost, being I have been mostly making 11"x14" and 11"x17" prints.

I have also made another slight shift with the printing of the digital negatives. I have historically altered the RGB color image to 'black & white film" through Paintshop Pro x9, a long naturalistic looking black & white tonal structure, from a color image. Doing this, still leaves the image an RGB image as far as the printer sees it. The digital negative is printed as an RGB image, using the color inks, but not the black. Bad habit to just let it go at that. This image was printed on Arista II 7 mil OHC clear film, on an Epson 1430 with the printing to be done using the 'Black & Gray' ink setting, using only the black ink cartridge. The tonality and density range of the finished negative printed the same as the multi-color version, making up the negative, as black & white.

I should also mention, that adding the color green to the image before printing it, leaves a green toned negative image, and that increases the output density range of the image; a lot.  I used Lightroom 6 to do the work, shifting the 'hue' slider left, into the green side to a -40 value, pretty green. That negative was then printed in full sunlight, for 10 minutes for a great finished print. Equal to my 5x7 film negatives with a density range of Log 1.8, which also print in direct sunlight for 10 minutes. For my UV printer that I built, with 160@ of white blacklight, at 6" from the table top, the density <curve> ["Color adjustment Curve~ Paintshop] I created for making platinum/palladium [Na2 prints] is labeled as the Na2 <curve> which makes a very nice print at 8 minutes, each time. With exceptions, for very contrasty images need to be flattened a bit before any <curve> is added, for best results.

This image was printed on Revere Platinum paper and toned in Gold toner; 1 % gold chloride and thiourea, the all at once toner. It is also touted as replacing most of the  silver salts in the print, leaving it mostly gold, after toning, fixing & clearing. I have found it to my liking over the 5% Ag toning solution. but that's just me.

Gold toned Kallitype

"Vase and Shadow" ~ 8"x10"

Merida, Mexico