![]() Something in my well water softens the print emulsion too much if I don't use a hardening fixer - the picture tends to peel off the paper. To get a good wash, Steiner learned to fix prints very quickly in strong ammonium thiosulfate rapid fixer without any hardener (hardener in the fixer retards print washing), and then washing them for only a few minutes after a 15 minute washing-aid-plus-selenium-toner treatment.Īlthough that worked well for him, it wouldn't for me. When he consulted a Kodak research chemist, he got no definite explanation, just an educated guess that leaf mold (or something) in his water contained some chemical that reacted to the silver nitrate as hypo would. The longer he left the prints standing in his Vermont well water after a preliminary wash, the darker his silver-nitrate stains became, as if the wash water were putting hypo back into the paper. Ralph Steiner made similar tests, independent of mine, and got very different results. Mostly it wastes a lot of water.ĭon't assume, without testing, that my still-water soak will work for you. That takes about five gallons per minute in most washers, but doesn't shorten the wash time by much. ![]() The water use per print is still far below that demanded by the old and crazy photo industry recommendation to use a flow rate that changes all the water in the tank every five minutes. Recently I got nervous and doubled the slow-flow periods to an hour each. This continues to work for me, as my occasional HT-2 tests consistently show. The sample I'd left in the water overnight showed such a low hypo content that it puzzled the chemist who did the test, so he did the test twice more on what was left of that sample to make sure it wasn't his mistake. I once overlooked a test sample, left it soaking in a washer overnight, then sent it, along with other regular, unforgotten, samples for quantitative methylene-blue testing by a lab. For me it works to wash prints at slow flow (half a gallon per minute) for half an hour at 75¼ to 80❏, then leave the prints in still water in the washer for a few hours, then finish the wash with another half hour of slow flow. ![]() Print fixing and washing involve so many unknown variables that no photographer can be sure of a good wash without careful personal testing. It won't work for everyone everywhere - the difference is what's in the water that comes from the faucet. Long ago I found a print-washing method that works well for me in Connecticut. Second, its stainless-steel tank - lighter, stronger and more compact than the usual acrylic tank - is not so stainless where it's welded, so the washer must be drained between uses to prevent rust. ![]() Usually that's enough, but sometimes I need to wash more than ten 11x14s and must put another washer in the sink. First, its print capacity is 10 11x 14s or 20 8x10s. It has two small problems that I can live with. Since 1979 I've used the Darkroom Aids 11x14 print washer designed by John Brezina. HT-2 won't let me plot a wash curve, but I only need to know that prints contain so little hypo that neither test method will produce a stain. "hypo") is just as sensitive and useful for practical purposes as ANSIÕs more elaborate quantitative silver nitrate test. Also, I learned years ago that the simple Kodak HT-2 silver-nitrate stain test for residual thiosulfate (a.k.a. My present reflection densitometer lacks the blue filter that measuring the test stains requires, and I have grown lazy since my last spasm of print-washer testing. I have not attempted a quantitative test. On seeing Versalab's ad in PHOTO Techniques I wrote to the company, which sent an 11x14 print washer for testing.
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