MorseBlog

A classic dish in the UK is fish and chips. It is traditionally served with salt and vinegar (acetic acid). This has become the title for this post, as the bleach I intend to make is one I found on the Moersch Photochemie website , as it uses vinegar and salt. The formula is listed below. Water approx. 50°C 750  ml Potassium permanganate 6  g Sodium chloride 13  g Acetic acid 98% 50  ml Water on 1000  ml The appeal for me to try this bleach is the rehalation uses chloride not bromide. This may change the toning outcome from a bromide paper.  (The term rehalation means to add a halogen ion to the silver ion. A halogen or halide is one of the group 17 in the periodic table that includes Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, Iodine and others. The term derives from Greek for 'salt producer' as it combines with alkali metals to form salts such as common table salt sodium chloride. Three of the halogens are the basis for silver-based film and papers, silver chloride, bro...

After my last couple of lith sessions I set abut trying to achieve a warmer tone on the Oriental Seagull paper. It has a pleasant taupe tone to it but it is decidedly olive in color but it has some light creamy pink highlights. In this latest round I experimented with a lith developer with a heavy addition of sea salt. Meant to create some warmer highlights it seemed to do the opposite and left me with more neutral tones. The salt also seemed to restrain the infectious development which was at once frustrating (waiting for it to happen) and rewarding in the that the range of tones in the shadows was more controlled.  Rehalating with Chlorine? Further thought got me down some logical sounding, though possibly wrong, path towards warmer prints. Since I was enamored now with sea salt I thought if I make a rehalation bleach bath I might be able to substitute sea salt (Almost entirely sodium chloride) for potassium bromide. Rehalation bleaches work by oxidizing the developed (reduced) ...