414. Preparing Alum Bath

Preparing Alum Bath.

ALUM BATH.

415. Keep prints in this alum bath for 10 minutes, handling them over carefully. The prints will not show any change in this bath, as the alum is used only to set the tone. Remove the prints to clear water and give them at least four changes, picking them over and over during each change. They will then be ready for fixing.

416. Preparing Fixing Bath

Preparing Fixing Bath. This bath should be prepared by hydrometer test 15 grains strong, or if hypo crystals are used - 2 ounces of hypo to 45 ounces of water.

417. Fixing

Fixing. Proceed with the fixing as previously instructed for the black and white tone on collodio carbon.

418. Washing

Washing. After prints are fixed, wash by hand through 15 to 18 changes of water, handling each print separately, in order to entirely eliminate the hypo. They will then be ready for drying.

419. Remarks

Remarks. Sepia toned prints will dry about two shades colder in tone than they appear when wet, so calculate accordingly. Should prints show bleaching in the hypo bath, a few drops of strong water of ammonia will stop this trouble. Or, a half ounce of borax to each gallon of fixing bath will also prevent bleaching. Alum should always be dissolved in scalding hot water; it will then dissolve more readily. As alum throws off a certain amount of sulphur, by dissolving in hot water the sulphur will be released more quickly. Allow the alum to stand until cool and there will be less danger of sulphur-ization.

420. The use of salt in the gold bath gives browner tones. Toning further in the gold produces colder tones.

Prints from soft, snappy negatives make the best sepia tones.

421. Warmer Sepia Tones.* - Prints for sepia toning in this bath must be printed only one shade deeper than you desire the finished print. The prints will not lose any in washing, and as the gold bath is weak and you do not tone deeply - only enough to clear the whites - you will readily understand why it is not necessary to print so deep.

422. Salt Bath

Salt Bath. Wash your prints as usual by hand, but in the third change of water add one ounce of salt to every two quarts of water that you are using for this wash. Separate the prints carefully, and it is well to handle them over several times in the salt bath until they become a bright red. It is for the purpose of turning the prints red that the salt is added. After this bath, give the prints three or four more changes of fresh water.

423. Preparing Uranium Gold Toning Bath

Preparing Uranium Gold Toning Bath.

424. Neutralize this bath with bicarbonate of soda. In previous baths we used borax for neutralizing; for this bath, however, use nothing else but the bicarbonate of soda. Make the bath quite alkaline, and keep the whites from bleaching by the addition of bicarbonate of soda. Nitrate of uranium toning bath gives exceedingly warm tones. Bicarbonate of soda as a neutralizer has the same effect, while salt holds warmth in the toning bath and assists in evening the tones; therefore, the above method is recommended for very warm tones. This bath must not work fast, but tone slowly and evenly. Just as soon as the whites are clear the print is toned and must be placed directly into a short-stop bath prepared as follows:

*Note. - While this bath gives warm tones, yet prints toned in a nitrate of uranium bath are not always permanent, so for that reason it is not recommended.

425. This solution sets the tone, the prints becoming very acid in this bath, so the acid must again be eliminated from the prints by thorough washing before fixing; otherwise sulphurization will take place.

426. After all are toned wash in three changes of clear water. They will then be ready for fixing.