The Kallitype Thread

[Andrew O'Neill]

Andrew, I am in the very beginning of Kallitype explorations.... Once I've established a basic repeatable workflow the first observation was a somewhat flat image no matter what I tried. Apart from color shift the use of Gold toner before fixing improved the fading issue during fixation. I suspect using Gold only as an additive to sensitizer is different and would not yield d-max and permanence improvements.

Thomas, nice image!. I'd love to see different variations of toning for Kallitypes.

I'm going to have to agree with you, Thomas. I made a print last night, with double the amount of Gold, and there was a noticeable decrease in contrast, where the highlights printed slightly darker. So, I guess it's back to toning before fixing, toning with Selenium after fixing, or just go with the native Kallitype colour, which I actually like for most of my images.

[tgtaylor]

Here's the sodium citrate developed print:

http://spiritsofsilver.com/yahoo_sit...2654_large.jpg

You may not be able to tell the differences between the ammonium citrate/sodium acetate and sodium citrate developed prints but the latter has a slightly more russet red color - kind of like looking through very lightly tinted rose colored eyeglasses that were popular back in the 60's. Everything else, developing and toning time, etc., remained the same. However the Dmax of the sodium citrate print appears greater as the two cloud puffs stabd out a little more but that may also be due to the different exposure times and conditions. I'm going to mat both.

Thomas

[Andrew O'Neill]

I tried many different developers over the years, including sodium acetate, as well as home brews. I always came back to good old sodium citrate. Very dependable, and cheap.

[SMBooth]

Andrew, I was doing that but have gone back to traditional gold toned pre fixing. I found I got much nicer deep browns/black over putting gold in the sensitiser.

[Andrew O'Neill]

Yes, I've gone back to toning before fixing as well. Momentary lapse of reason...
On another note, I've been fiddling with that new Hahnemuhle paper. Been having issues with streaks on large prints from brush coating, like I'm talking brutal. In all my years of Kallitype printing, I've never had this issue. 8x10 prints no problem, but when I move up to 11x14... I know I brush thoroughly, too. I've used foam and hake brushes. The hake brushes are worse. My question is for anyone who uses this paper, do you find it necessary to use a surfactant such as Tween 20? And, how do you apply the sensitizer? Do you pour it on the paper and begin brushing, or do you dip and brush on? I'm thinking for my next round, I'll try a surfactant and the dip and brush method... This time of the year, the relative humidity is quite low. 30RH. The sensitiser appears to be setting faster. That could also be contributing to the streaking. Your thoughts? Thank you!

[Andrew O'Neill]

Well, I sorted out the issue. I wasn't using enough sensitiser. All is good in the world again.

[Andrew O'Neill]

The culprit was low humidity. After being advised by someone over at Apug, I tried steaming the sensitised paper on both sides. Nice, smooth tones especially in the highlights.

[Holdenrichards]

Kallitype on Strathmore 300gsm paper; in-camera 8x10 Negative

[tgtaylor]

Platinum-toned kallitype from a 5x7 Ilford FP4+ negative. This is a test scan upon reconnecting the network after some remodeling work. The print was printed too dark and i'm not thrilled with its color. i intended to reprint it today but never got the chance.

Thomas

[Dirk Rösler]

I quite like it. Well done!