[pure-silver] Re: Dry back

  • From: "Ralph W. Lambrecht" <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2009 10:41:12 +0100

Tim

Your experience points to a common problem but it is not the cause of dry-down. The illumination to evaluate a print in the darkroom should match final viewing conditions. A print will always look darker, and of less contrast, in dimmer light. Bright darkroom evaluation leads to disappointment as soon as the print is viewed in dimmer conditions. This is the case whether the print is wet or dry and can be tested with dry print at any time by changing illumination. On the other hand, raising illumination can improve the appearance of a print significantly. That's why photographers always fight for the brightest display area in the exhibition. :)

As Russ says, dry down has to do with light reflection differences between a wet and dry emulsion, which differs somewhat between papers. Some darkroom worker believe dry-down to be a myth, but it is real and can easily be tested by sticking a dry step tablet half-way into water.


In addition to Richard's proposals, dry-down can be compensated, up to a point, in two ways. When you do the test with the step tablet, and the steps are incremented in 1/12 stop, you'll find that wet and dry steps are roughly one step apart in appearance. This means that the loss of highlight density is roughly 1/12 stop due to dry down. So, when I like the highlight appearance of a wet print, I just back off the exposure by 1/12 stop, printing a bit on the light side, but ending up where I want to be. Finally, the loss of Dmax between wet and dry print can partially be compensated with selenium toning.







Regards




Ralph W. Lambrecht


http://www.darkroomagic.com



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On Dec 02, 2009, at 03:05, Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Dennis Purdy wrote:

On Dec 1, 2009, at 17:36, Elias Roustom wrote:

Is the dry back effect of fiber prints something to do with how a
sheet look wet vs. dry, or is there more to it than that?

Is there a chemical process ongoing until the sheet is fully dry?


Elias

My experience is that this has everything to do with how illuminated
your darkroom is.  When I had 400 W of light in the darkroom, all
my prints seemed to "dry down".  I reduced it to 260 W and, magically,
no more (or very little) dry down.  Methinks the issue is that you
should inspect the wet print with about the same illumination you'll
use to display the print, not more.  Otherwise, you'll tend to print
too dark to overcome the bright inspection lights.  I have confirmed
this with about a half dozen different kinds and brands of papers...

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