Bleaching your Prints

[rog]

Hi all,

Anybody knows what kind of chemical to use for bleaching your print?

Thanks!

 

[sniki]

I use bleaching only with Polaroid 100 and Fuji FP instant film to lighten too dark shots; 10% bleach in solution with water it works quite actively, it takes about 30, 40 seconds.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Normally potassium ferricyanide. What sort of bleaching are you talking about? To what end, in other words? Farmer's Reducer consists of 10g/l ferricyanide (Solution A) and 200 g/l hypo (sodium thiosulphate - Solution B). 1 part A + 5 parts B + 24 parts water. Or for bleach-and-redevelop toning, either a ferricyanide bleach or an acid-permanganate bleach.

Household bleach has no traditional photographic applications.

Cheers,

R.

 

[shadowfox]

I use bleaching only with Polaroid 100 and Fuji FP instant film to lighten too dark shots; 10% bleach in solution with water it works quite actively, it takes about 30, 40 seconds.

I'm familiar with what Roger described above, but bleaching instant prints? that's new to me, thanks 🙂

 

[sniki]

I do confirm: household bleach-water solution for instant prints.

 

[jmcd]

I learned with a fellow who half fixed all of his prints during a work day, rinsed and left them soaking (with periodic water changes.)

When he was ready, he mixed up a solution of potassium ferricyanide and water to a light yellow color. Each print was evaluated in good light, one by one and bleached if needed—shadow areas, part of a skin tone, whatever, or nothing, to treat a specific detail or balance the overall print. Then the print was rinsed, fixed in the second bath, rinsed and washed, along with the rest of the batch.

 

[rog]

thanks!!
did anybody ever use the regular bleach with prints, or will that not work at all?
where can you buy Farmer's Reducer?

rog

 

[Roger Hicks]

thanks!!
did anybody ever use the regular bleach with prints, or will that not work at all?
where can you buy Farmer's Reducer?

rog

Again, what are you trying to do?

'Bleach' may be misleading in this context. It can mean 'lighten' or turn white'. Of course household bleach can do the same to fabrics but it has NO uses in conventional photography except (it seems) lightening instant prints, which I had never heard of before this thread. For that matter, 'bleach-blonde hair' is not normally achieved with household bleach. Bleaching is a process (cf 'sun-bleached', 'peroxide blonde'), not a chemical.

The formulae I gave are for B+W. I know of no reliable way to lighten colour prints.

Where are you? Freestyle almost certainly sells Farmer's reducer.

Cheers,

R.

 

[rog]

Ok! It is indeed a kind of 'misleading', so thanks for that.
I live in the netherlands, but do order sometimes from freestyle. Is there also another brand other then kodak's Farmer's Reducer?

rog

 

[taylan]

in this link she is doing bleaching. may be you saw before.
taylan

 

[ZorkiKat]

Household hypochlorite bleach will soften and eat away gelatine emulsions. They work by oxidising dyes and stains. A BW print is made of silver metal, so hypochlorite and peroxide (the 'colour bleach' and blonde bleach component) will have no effect on them. Even with the dye based colourprints, the gelatine tends to be eaten away first before any reduction in dye densities can be observed.

The bleaches used in BW are usually silver solvents. They convert developed silver into something which will dissolve in water. Some bleaches (ferricyanide + halide, or ferri EDTA + halide) will rehalogenise- convert metallic silver to silver bromide or chloride so that they can either be dissolved in fixer or be redeveloped with another compound to alter the colour, as in sepia toning or chromogenic colour toning.

Colour bleaches will convert developed silver back to silver halide so that they will dissolve fully in the fixer, leaving only the colour dye image.

 

[rog]

Thanks all!
A lot of things are cleared now.
Nice vid Taylan, beautiful also the way she seems to dance with her hands to dodge and burn! It is really nice to see when people do things with suchs a passion. And good to see how the bleaching is done!

Thanks again to all!
rog