[pure-silver] Re: word from ilford

  • From: Steve Nicholls <gl1500@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 10:08:49 +0930

Eric Nelson wrote:
I got a call from Mike Bain from Ilford/Harman, and
his opinion, as well as one other person he consulted,
is that these prints we've been discussing have
suffered oxidative bronzing.
Now to me bronzing has been a defect that presents as
a reflective mirror effect with little or no
discoloration such as an over exposed albumen print,
but Mike assured me this is different and is
attributed to pollutants of one kind or another.

I had three RC prints do virtually the same and it was the glues used in the mounting. Not done by me. They were mounted under glass.

[snip]

His only suggestion to prevent this from happening is
selenium toning for a few minutes in either 1:19 or
1:31 dilutions.

I had always thought that silver prints processed &
washed well would be fairly archival and that selenium
gives and added amount of stability for the truly
paranoid and also cools the image, but it seems from
this conversation that selenium is pretty much a
necessary part of the silver process when sending off
work to unknown environments and handling.

At the 1:31 dilution I doubt there would be any colour change.
Afga Sistan is also recommend for similar reasons. Apparently it has been re-released by AO ??

Steve
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