Pt/Pd Tech Part II: A Little Help From Your Friends

By Carl Weese

[Part I is here]

Some people claim platinum printing involves black magic. I won’t go that far, but it’s certainly as much art as science. That’s partly because it’s just plain complicated. The ideal of testing one variable at a time is nice, but it just doesn’t happen in the platinum darkroom. You’re always juggling multiple factors.

This past March, Hahnemühle sent me some sample packs of its not-yet-released Platinum Rag paper (HPR). I did a couple quick tests and liked it so much I requested more for my “Digital Platinum” workshop at CAP/Penumbra in New York. (Disclosure: Hahnemühle is now a partial sponsor—donated paper—for my CAP workshop, which is entirely appropriate because CAP is a non-profit educational institution. For my current print offer I’m buying my paper from B&H, just like anybody else.)

The paper behaved about as you’d expect if one of the oldest and most respected paper makers in the world put their mind to the task of creating a paper from scratch for the process. The surface is so easy to work with that students, absolute beginners, were getting nice smooth coatings right away when we opened the samples on the second day of the workshop.

HPR and humidity
A sheet coated with Pt/Pd solution needs to be carefully prepared for printing. You have to dry it off, but you need to leave enough moisture in the paper to support the exposure process. Just how much humidity you need depends on the particular paper. I knew from beta-tester reports that the new material thrived in lower humidity environments than most other papers, which was great because the CAP workspace tends to be dryer than most papers like. The students’ prints showed that the paper is faster (shorter printing exposures) than the old standby, Platine, and had significantly more contrast. I’d need later on to do some tests to modify my negative preparation to compensate for the higher contrast. Meanwhile the workshop participants were delighted to be getting nice prints in their first experience with the process, and to see the fascinating differences between the prints on Platine and HPR.

Back in my darkroom I did precise tests with a file that combines an abstract step tablet and a small real-world picture. This let me find the shortest printing exposure that gives a maximum black, and then let me dial back one of my print driver settings (for outputting the digital negative) to keep the higher contrast from burning out the whites.

Then I did other stuff for most of the summer. When Mike and I had gotten our possible Print Offer selections down to four or five, working from on-screen files from scans, I decided it was time to test print them. As much as I like Fabriano, I didn’t want to do a volume run of printing with a paper that needs pretreatment, and anyway, I thought these pictures would look better on the brighter, cooler-toned HPR. So I got a package of 22x30 (which cuts down efficiently to 10x19.5) and immediately ran into a sticky situation. Literally. When a coated sheet that seemed to be perfectly prepared was printed with my large UV light source and vacuum frame, the edges of the coated area stuck to the negative film. This is not a complete surprise. These films are made super-absorbent so they can handle extreme ink loads, which is why we can make digital negatives for platinum with them, but absorbent is more or less a synonym for sticky. So I tried again and dried the next sheet enough that it would not be successful on Platine or Fabriano. The picture printed fine, but the edges of the coating stuck. This was strange. I’ve never before had this issue relate to scaling up the size of the print.

I coated a small sheet for my standard test negative, dried it totally with a hair dryer, and printed it right away. No sticking, but no Dmax. That’s no surprise, and most of the tones looked amazingly good for a bone-dry sheet. I coated and totally dried another one, then let it rest for ten minutes in 60% humidity, then printed it. It stuck. Just at the edges. I developed it anyway, and the print looked great, but the negative was toast from sensitizer transfer at the edges.

Community
The small community of platinum printers is very collegial and generous. I quickly found out that people working with HPR over the past few months liked to use the additive Tween20 with it. About Tween, there are people who swear by it, and people who swear at it. I’ve always been in the “at” group. I hate the way the solution “works” during the coating process with the additive, on most papers. (It’s a surfactant. For those familiar with the silver darkroom, think Photo-Flo on steroids.)

Well, if HPR came with an instruction sheet (it doesn’t) I think it would recommend the use of a surfactant. The action of coating was not badly impacted—the coating distributed and worked in more quickly. Most important, given fan-but-no-heat drying in a 45% humidity environment, it showed no sticking at all even in the hard pressure of the vac frame, and delivered a beautiful print. OK, problem solved.

That’s how you figure things out for platinum printing: experiments, limiting the variables as much as feasible, and a little help from your friends.

Carl

Carl Weese, who lives in rural Connecticut with his artist wife Tina, has been teaching the esoteric art of fine platinum printing in group workshops and private tutoring sessions since the 1990s.

©2016 by Carl Weese, all rights reserved

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Andrea B.: "Carl, can you tell me a bit about Pt/Pd archival properties? Any particular framing or hanging suggestions? Thanks!"

Carl replies: Andrea, Pt/Pd is the most archival of photographic media (well, carbon transfer may tie for that honor). The print consists of microscopic particles of non-reactive Pt/Pd metals embedded in fine, 100% cotton paper. Standard archival matting and framing materials are fine. Avoid dry-mounting; the print will lie perfectly flat positioned with corners or a paper hinge. UV-blocking glazing is a good idea to protect the paper, and avoid display where it will get direct sunlight.

Subdued or special lighting is not needed. In fact, it makes me a little crazy when I go to a museum show of wonderfully archival platinum prints and find the curators have set the lighting so low I can’t see the pictures properly!

Comments

[Rob L]

Just wanted to thank Carl and you, Mike, for this series. The print sales are a fantastic way to access new art; these 'behind the scenes' bits are really helpful in both appreciating tthat art more, and in giving a hint on how to try something new. Or just as helpfully, convince us that some things maaaay take more time and effort that we currently have...:)

[Lindsay Bach]

You speak of letting the coated paper "rest for 10 minutes in 60% humidity" which implies that you are able to vary the humidity of your darkroom at will. How do you set or maintain a specific humidity for your printing environment?

[Lyle]

Carl, a friend's gallery print storage area in nyc got flooded during hurricane sandy. The only things that survived were pt prints

[Carl]

Lindsay, it's a fairly small space, 11x17 by A-frame ceiling. I have an air conditioner in the wall, a dehumidifier if it's damp but cool, and if it's winter and dry because of heating, you run hot water into the eight-foot darkroom sink, and run a humidifier. And a tool. There's a temperature/humidity meter sitting in the middle of the central counter in the space. I refer to it constantly, and adjust the other tools.

Lyle, don't make me cringe. But I guess there's an upside to that.

[Bob Redd]

I am using B & S's NA2 formula for my pt/Pd prints on Hahnemuhle's new platinum rag. I am so pleased with the results. Since I am using a homemade contact printer. I use transparent Scotch tape to secure my digital negative to the HPR in case I need to reregister the negative. After exposure when I carefully remove the negative the tape also peels the paper causing a defect . Do you have a tip on tape or on removal of negative?

[Hugh O. Smith]

There are only two Platinum printers extant (In my opinion) Carl Weese and Gary Auerbach.
I'd be in the list but I gave up on it years ago...rolling on the floor.
Mi dos pesos.

[Carl]

Bob, not sure why you want to re-register—are you trying to inspect the print partway through exposure? Correct exposure for digital negatives is so hair-trigger I think you just have to go for it. The good side is that if you've prepared your files well, exposure in the darkroom will be very consistent. With HPR in my vac frame and big light box, exposure is 3 min, 45 sec.

If you need to do the tape, try low-tack blue painter's tape, or even the very low-tack sticky edge of, you know, Stickies.

Digital negatives can now reach entirely adequate density range to print in either pure palladium or a Pt/Pd mix (the real, traditional, Pt) without need for Na2 or any other contrast agent.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

The number of chemical processes discovered to tattoo images onto stuff is truly remarkable and fascinating, Carl's Pt/Pd certainly ranks among the most troublesome for monochome. I bought one of his wonderful prints from his previous sale specifically to have a top-notch sample of this process. Carl, didn't you make a brief video of your process? Excuse me if I've missed its reference here this week but I recall seeing it during your first sale.

Speaking of videos, the George Eastman House has produced short videos of various printing processes which TOP readers might find fun to watch. Of course GEH also holds classes on some of these processes. (Mike, are you considering attending any from your new HQ location?)

[Carl]

Ken, Pt/Pd is actually quite direct and simple compared to carbon transfer, or albumen, but it does require a high degree of consistency—plus, what you have to do varies from one paper to another.

I had a slide show for the 2010 print offer but it shows me working with an 8x10 in-camera negative which might have confused things this time around. It's a good idea though. I should put making a short video on the list of things to do after we've fulfilled the print offer orders.

[Earl Dunbar]

Carl - Per your comment about lighting in museums ... YES! As much as I absolutely love the Eastman Museum (formerly George Eastman House,) I have seen Pt and Pt/Pd prints hung there under the "standard", subdued lighting. It drove me nuts.

I don't use anything larger than 4x5 (physical limitations) so I'm intrigued by making digital negatives. I even have some 35mm PanF+ negatives that I suspect might be ripe for Pt/Pd via enlarged digital negs.

[Chas]

Did I miss something here? Is there a part I somewhere?
C

[You didn't miss anything, I did. Fixed now. Thanks for the heads up. --Mike]

[Carl]

Earl, I'm teaching my "Digital Platinum" workshop at CAP/Penumbra in two weeks, Oct. 1-2. Not sure if there are any spaces left, but just in case...