Wet Plate - A Beginner's Experience

[Ari]

I'd love to post in the image sharing section, but I'm not there yet, not by a long shot.
Shot a few plates yesterday, and veiling seems to be the problem now. Temperatures were not bad yesterday, low-to-mid 80s, cooler than it's been for a while.
In the next few days, I'm going to go through everything, filter and clean all the chemicals.
It seems odd to have to do this after only about 15-20 plates, but my technique isn't yet refined, so there may be lots of crap in my silver bath already.
Anyway, here are the examples. Straight scans, no manipulation as always.

[goamules]

They're looking better exposed now to me. The bottom one seems the best. Veiling, spots, islands and all that are just technique generated, but getting the right exposure and development time is critical.

Also, scanning requires some post processing. If you mean by "no manipulation" you aren't despeckling or such, that's great. But you usually must adjust the contrast, color cast, and several other things to get a scan to match a plate in hand. Here is a plate from last year, first in water so "as is", but taken with a cell phone and I did not mess with the contrast curves. Here is is after scanning and adjusting it, to look very close to what the final, dried plate looks like. But if you hold a varnished plate in a dark room, it will look dark, closer to that fresh plate in water. If you hold it in bright sun, it will lock much more vibrant, like my scan shows. It's a real skill to try to make a scan look like the real plate.

[paulbarden]

I'd love to post in the image sharing section, but I'm not there yet, not by a long shot.
Shot a few plates yesterday, and veiling seems to be the problem now. Temperatures were not bad yesterday, low-to-mid 80s, cooler than it's been for a while.
In the next few days, I'm going to go through everything, filter and clean all the chemicals.
It seems odd to have to do this after only about 15-20 plates, but my technique isn't yet refined, so there may be lots of crap in my silver bath already.
Anyway, here are the examples. Straight scans, no manipulation as always.

Ari,
I don't believe your technical problems (as evidenced above) have anything to do with unwanted material in your silver bath, unless you are really, horribly sloppy with technique (which I doubt). My question is about the developer: did you either 1) use a warm weather recipe, or 2) keep your developer chilled to at least 70F before use? Because I think I'm seeing veiling, the type caused by development of unexposed shadow areas. This happens if you develop the plate too long, or don't use an appropriate developer for the warmer weather. Anything over 75F is heading into veiling/fogging territory, IME. If you are still under 80F, then you can get by with adding more acid and diluting the developer, but over 80F you have to take more steps to keep things working well.

[Ari]

Thanks, Garret and Paul.

Garrett, the scans I do are neutral as possible, so they do look like the plates, or very close. Nice shots, both before and after.
I agree, the last one looks best, and I thought so after it had cleared. Then it veiled over and after drying, it got quite a bit lighter.

Paul, I spoke to a friend yesterday, her first question was about the developer. I realized that I'd been on the same bottle for over 2 weeks, and it was probably old.
The weather probably played into it as well, as you say. Even though we had low 80s this week, I didn't make the adjustment. I'm still using the B&S developer.
As for development time, I'm keeping it to a strict 15s, every plate, and adjusting exposure. Not development time.

Thanks again, I'll mix up some new developer, keep it cool, and post some results as soon as I can.

[Ari]

Ok, it was the developer, which was about 3 weeks old.
Mixed a new batch today and things went better.
From now on, I'm going to mix about 15% more than what I think I need for the day. No more long-term developer storage.

Here are two shots from today:





And here they are again, now with very minor tweaks in Lightroom:





I'm also now a firm believer in tray developing, at least as long as my dark box is what it is: very dark and quite small.
The tray adds a level of consistency that is greatly appreciated by this beginner.

[Two23]

I started out with the tip-tray method and it did reduce a lot of frustration.


Kent in SD

[Ari]

I started out with the tip-tray method and it did reduce a lot of frustration.

I know, right?

[Mark Sawyer]

For what it's worth, I mix big batches of developer, stored at room temperature in Arizona (80+ F in the summer), and have had no problems with developer over 6 months old.

[Ari]

Hmm, I can't argue with you, Mark. But I also can't argue with the results today.
I'm still using B&S pre-mixed developer (add water, makes its own sauce!), could that be the reason my developer went south?

[Two23]

i've not had a problem with B&S developer screwing up because of age myself. I've had some that was months old before I used it, and that was both before and after mixing. I have been adding a bit more water and acetic acid now that temps are in the 80s and 90s.



Kent in SD