is 90 minutes a long exposure time for platinum palladium print?

[Pitcherman]

Gents,
i am working my way into platinum/palladium printing. I built a UV exposure unit and am using 8 20-watt BL tubes. I have been doing some 4x5 prints with it and have had some negs that i processed in Ilfosol3 come out really nicely after 10 minutes, but a recent batch of negs developed in Pyrocat HD 1:200 that are printing out at 60-90 minutes. Do these times seem excessively long? As a newby, I read some notes about humidity, but I was wondering if high summer temperature could be a contributor to longer exposure times. On a related note can temperature increase contrast in the final print?
Thanks in advance

Robert
P.S. The dress was a 30 minute exposure and the bride was 90 minutes and to my eye could use still more.

[Vaughn]

If you used TMAX 100, then the long exposure times are due to the anti-UV layer on the film (not on TMAX400).

[Pitcherman]

Thanks Vaughn. I hadn't thought about the film type, but these are HP5.

[Thom Bennett]

That seems excessively long. I'm in New Orleans (high humidity) and my times are usually 10 to 15 minutes under an Edwards exposure box. Not sure of the lamp wattage but they are probably 20 watts. I use HP-5 in PMK. Are you heavily overexposing the negs? Are they really dense?

Nice images, BTW.

[Brian Ellis]

I've never done platinum but I've done gum and VanDyke brown which requires a somewhat denser negative than normal. My typical print exposure times were in the general range of 5-10 minutes using a home-made light box with lights similar to yours.

How far above the easel are your lights? Maybe they're unnecessarily high, which could contribute to your long times.

[Vaughn]

The pryo stain does block UV. I used Rollo Pyro a while back when "post-staining" (putting the neg back into the developer or other alkaline solution after fixing) was still recommended. All it did has add extra general staining that increased exposure times. I suppose an over-exposed neg, developed in pyro would tend to have an excessive exposure time due to excessive staining.

[Pitcherman]

Gents-


The total box height is 71/2 in and the lights are abt 2 in. from the print surface. I have had some really nice exposures in the shorter time frames. I have attached a photo of the negs which to my eye look pretty nice. I guess the highlights are maybe a little dense (i dont have a densitometer) but I was kind of trying for a more contrasty image so I processed at like 12 minutes at 75F. I think I will drop back to 8 or 9 minutes at 75F. But still I dont think they look ridiculously contrasty. What do you think? I know it is hard to tell from a picture.

This is all pretty new to me, and I know there are an awful lot of variables. I was even wondering if somehow I was having some sort of power sag causing my lights to be dimmer.
I truly appreciate the input.

Robert

[Pitcherman]

Vaughn-
Would using the pyro at 1:200 increase the staining?
Thanks,

[Vaughn]

Vaughn-
Would using the pyro at 1:200 increase the staining?
Thanks,

Sorry - that exceeds my limited knowledge of pyro. But from the negs, it does look like you have too much contrast for Pt/pd...but might have a good carbon printing negative (which is not easy to achieve with HP5+).

Visual checks with pyro-devloped negs are difficult due to the stain blocking UV light...UV 'sees' much differently than we do and one can not easily visually judge a pyro neg when used with UV sensitive processes...they are much more 'dense' and contrasty than they appear.

[Pitcherman]

Vaughn-
thanks, I think I will try to decrease my development time to pull those highlights back in. the problem is in getting detail in the most dense areas of the neg. I was definitely making a conscious to maximize contrast in my film development. So now, if nothing else, I know what "too" contrasty is.