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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
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Localized bleaching has always captivated me. The way it increases local contrast in a black and white darkroom print just seems magical... the same as watching a black and white print appear when being developed... just never gets old for me.
In this video I show you my darkroom process ➡️ how I use bleaching to enhance and put the finishing touches on my darkroom prints.
Hope this inspires someone to give this darkroom technique a try!
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Go to black and white film photography setup (medium Format) //
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Go to digital camera setup //
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Canon R5 - amzn.to/35FUX0r
Canon 35mm f1.4 L ii - amzn.to/3ioIBPl
Canon 50mm f1.2 RF - amzn.to/2N47Hax
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I've used some form of Farmer's Reducer for these tasks for 62 years. Once you get secure with the process, you can move with surprising speed. Two tips or comments:
1. If you finish and dry a print, then decide it needs this treatment, just rewet it and have at it. But you need to then redo the finishing steps: fix, full wash and dry.
2. Seems obvious, but you have to do this work before you finally spot or tone a print.
Nice summary of a technique which has been largely lost over time.
Thanks Randall! and thanks for the additional info... I often re-wet dry prints for further bleaching prior to ti=oning & spotting like you mention... sometimes it makes sense to evaluate the dry print before going to far!
I haven’t watch all your videos, but this a nice presentation of the process.
@@ShaneB666 Thank you very much!
Great advice. As well as localised bleaching I will sometimes bleach the whole print in a tray of very dilute Farmer's Reducer, just for a few seconds, and then rewash thoroughly. That can give all the highlights in a print a bit of extra sparkle, which can help if the print isn't quite popping.
@@ianland4768 That is a great way to increase contrast too. Ended up with lovely print color doing this on some papers too
Excellent Technique Matthew!!!!!! Thanks!!!!
@@SammySantiagoIrizarry Thank you 🙏
Yes, it works great !! Thanks a lot !
@@GuillaumeHary-r1o your welcome!
Brilliant! Thank you - what I always think I can only accomplish in that subpar digital way, yet again I find I can do it better in print
Your welcome, it's fascinating stuff for sure!
Very interesting! Never knew this existed
@@CD-kc5op It’s very powerful 👍
Great video. Thank you very much. I have a question about silenium toning for archival pertinence. Do you tone your prints? Does the ferry have any effect? Before ? After the ferry? Thank you
@@mrfidegf Thank you, you would tone your prints after ( I tone all my final prints in some form) if you tone before the selenium will affect the silver depending on how long and strong the toner the bleach will not work as the silver is no longer silver and will be resistant to the bleach. But selenium works in the shadow first so this depends. But in general you would just tone afterwards 👍
i do some on my prints, and yeah noooot easy ^^ so good advices in this vid.
Why dont you use ferry alone ? why do you prefer the mix with bromide ? I don t get it
@@kevinwagemans1577 Allows developing back if needed
up ? :)
will do some prints soon, and i think i will need the magic ferry touch for one or 2.
Thanks for your chanel.
@@miguelangelcarretero1686 your welcome!
would this work on color print as well?
@@junelltanio4381 No, only black and white.
You offer some excellent ideas on print related K+ Ferricyanide reduction. And, I have been using this method, just as you have--generally for increasing localized highlights, for at least 40+ years. Sometimes if a print almost has the highlights it needs, but not quite, I will reduce the whole print, but that is rare. Bleaching is my alamo technique, and I always begin by selenium intensifying the negative. That is easy to do with whole plate (6.5x8.5) negatives or larger. Much harder to do with smaller negatives--if you are targeting limited areas. I hope you don't mind, I will forward the formula I made up using anhydrous (crystalline) material, which is how I buy the Ferricyanide. This is quite dilute, and to get any change, an application of at least 15 seconds is necessary. .62g K+F, if you wish to add K+ Bromide: .31 g, and water to make 375ml. For smaller amounts you can extrapolate; the formula is equally effective. Lifespan is about an hour. I have never had any issues with staining, but like you, I always defer to using a dilute amounts. Application is generally with a q-tip or finger, but I use only large negatives; whole plate or bigger. Again, you offer a really fine and detailed approach to this process, and if your viewers are intent on making fine prints, this is definitely a technique they must master. The image you present at 10:00 appears to be a very nice, full bodied print. I can't really see the change in values, but in real life they would certainly be apparent.
@@callmeBe Thank you very much, your input and experience is very much appreciated.
I have also done a full dilute bath but usually apply locally. I have not tried localized selenium intensification but find it interesting.
When filming the difference is very obvious and even in the editing software. When on TH-cam You can still see a difference but much more subtle… but I did only want a subtle effect.
I have found the hardest part about video is trying to get a print to look how it actually does…. I also notice a diffence in warmth between the two but this must be from mixed lighting as they very much are identical in this regard. I do my best 🤷🏻♂️.
@@Distphoto Yea, if you need full bleaching baths for your prints, you are obviously not generating enough contrast in your negatives. That's ok from time to time, but if you do this with many prints, you need to increase development time, or concentration of your developer, or agitation--all having to do with increasing negative contrast. I say this not for you--you are an expert, but for your viewers. Selenium intensification in local areas most certainly only applies to large format. And, I use it on almost every negative. I studied with Morley and Francis Baer, and got to meet many of the Westons now passed (Brett, Cole, Maggie), and selenium was the standard for this whole group of people. But your viewers can certainly benefit with whole negative selenium, especially when they find they are gently between paper grades (if they use the older papers). As far as presentation, you will never get it beyond modestly close. There are too many variables (consider the screens others are using). It's a terrible shame, because I spent years around Weston and Ansel's prints, even doing retouching for Morley, and the internet reproductions you see online of Pepper #30, or Moonrise Over Hernandez, etc. don't even begin to approach the full throated beauty of these real prints. So, like you already do, you do what you can, in the frustration that your reproductions can't begin to approach the beauty of the silver gelatin print. Hopefully your viewers have a slight sense of this. Many of Edward Weston's prints (especially late 1930's, early 40's), glow and bleed light even in a subdued lighting experience. On the internet, we do what we can . . .
@@callmeBe I have never seen any of the Weston’s prints first had but certainly would love to and so cool you were able to meet and see some amazing work as you have.
I have seen Ansel’sand others first hand and it was remarkable.
I will say the one thing I really love about digital photography is that it often looks so good on a screen, and unfortunately underwhelming in print at times.
For you local selenium do you use petroleum or anything to control it! Biggest I shoot is 4x5 and still see it being a little restrictive but thinking I will give it a shot.
@@Distphoto Yea, 4x5 is definitely on the small side, but if you had larger partial areas needing about a 1/4 grade more contrast, selenium would give you that. I use it the same way Morley did. You use plain old Kodak Rapid Selenium Toner wet out of the container. For whole negatives: wet your negative first in water, and then put in a tray with nothing but the Kodak. If you have reservations, you can always dilute about 1/2 with 1/2 water. You want constant agitation! You can get the same results with 1/2 and 1/2 as undiluted, but it will simply take about twice the time. Of course, it is a selective intensifier, and will only enhance the upper values, say, zone 6.5+. The higher the initial value, the more your area will change. But it can be modestly helpful for midzone areas, where you have a lot of bushes and only slight highlights. Those areas will enhance, but you will need to work for it. Say, 10 minutes + in pure selenium. No, dilution and time are your only needed controls. After about 10 minutes the selenium undiluted will have met it's threshold. But don't expect anything more than 1/2 a zone of intensification at zone 8. If you are locally intensifying: wet the entire negative, and then get most of the water off. Hold your negative up in such a way where, as you apply to the negative (cotton swab or finger), the excess will not bleed into areas you don't want. ESPECIALLY any SKY. That happens very easily especially with large negatives (whole plate or larger), they bend when you hold them, and the selenium will pool and create rings around where the film bends. Your other option would be to place in slightly wet tray and hold the tray in such an angle that the selenium only flows to areas on the down side of your tray. I like to hold the negative up, that way I can exactly gauge the process. As the selenium develops, the actual color of your negative will change. I develop in ABC 622 pyro with Ilford, and the negative color turns a darker green. With other films (Bergger) it will go brown. Inspect as you go, and you will see the areas get darker and with a color change. Fix after for 4 or 5 minutes. Just use plain hypo. If, by mistake, your selenium bleeds into other areas, especially the sky, it will leave streaks. The only thing you can do is to intensify the whole negative, and raise the values up to the level of the streaks. My experience is, the streaks go away, but now you are going to need to work harder to lower those levels by dodging. I hope that fully answers your interests/concerns. Do this, write me before you try this stuff out, and we can put forward a plan of action on the negative you wish to do. At that time I will give you my e-mail. Tonality wise, Edward Weston's work had the potential to be quite a bit more expansive than Ansel's. Especially during the 1940's and beyond when Ansel was using Dektol. Tonally, Ansel's best work was before he veered away from pyro and amidol. So, his Parmelian Prints (late 1920's) for tonality were absolutely exceptional. A lot of his later work, not as much.
I have done a fair amount of bleaching over the years, though not as much as you, certainly. I was surprised that you said to get the tone until it looks right before putting it in the fixer. In my experience, the accelerating action of the fixer further lightens the bleached tone -- sometimes significantly so. Perhaps that is from using a stronger bleach, but Barnbaum, as you will know, and others have issued the same caution. In my experience, it is more common to dip the print back in the fixer periodically to check progress accurately.
Also, around 9:00, you said the print can be redeveloped as long as the fixer has been rinsed out. Did I miss something? You said you had given the print "a good rinse," and this is what
rinsed out all the fixer, so that the print could still be redeveloped? It would help to know what constitutes the rinse with fiber-base paper.
Your thoughts, please?
Of course... I usually will cover the print in the tray with fresh water and dump 3 - 5 times and that seems to be more than enough to remove the fix from the emulsion. As you probabaly know the long wash times fiber papers require is for the residual fixer getting into the fibers of the paper itself.
So the brief wash for me has allowed full redevelopment when needed. Though I never go at it with the intention of having to redevelop, it just works when I 've needed it to.
And to you first point. I think the intensifying in the fix will come from two things... Not sufficiently washing of the bleach when you want the action to stop and using a stonger solution.
I personally do not see much additional action in the fix, and attribute it mostly to the layering of very dillute bleach, the downside is it takes much more patients...
Another thing I've read with dillute bleach is that it can actually reduce contrast... This has not been my experience at all but may not give as strong a contrast as using stonger bleach.
@@Distphoto Much obliged. I have a recent portrait negative taken against the rising sun in a risky situation. I had intended to use a reflector to model the faces a bit, and also to shade the lens, neither of which I remembered to do when the subjects arrived early and my time was limited. Foolish mistakes. I may have to print down and do some very careful bleaching.
@@philipu150 There are other methods that work on shadows first and so fourth. Not much experience with them but maybe worth a look/ search
@@Distphoto Slight diversion here: The one I know in that respect is pre-bleaching (post-exposure, pre-development) with David Kachel's SLIMT technique. I got myself all set up with that, N-1 through N-4 a few years back; even wrote an article on it that Tim Layton published. I had already settled on D-23 for film development but had been unable to get divided D-23 under control. SLIMT is great (and can be used on prints as well), but after seeing others' recent results with DD-23, I made another pass and finally wrestled it into obedience. SLIMT is a secondary technique for me now. It won't help me on the prints I mentioned; they'll just take patience, and I'll keep in mind the image in John Sexton's Places of Power in which he achieved evenness over an entire side of a building with patient bleaching. Extraordinary.
Is this technique suitable for both Fiber and RC? Sorry for the newbie question.
Thats a great question and I do not have a lot of experience using this on R.C papers but it will work. I have read that it works better on Fiber papers. been a while since trying on R.C. but do not recall a huge difference in it working any differently at all. Maybe someone with more direct (recent) experience will chime in.
Yes , the silver reacts the same in both papers.
I just stick the print to my shower wall and use the shower head hose for rinsing 😂🎉🎉
@@nickfanzo Nice 👍
👍
👍👍👍
There's a great tutorial on YT by Dr Tim Rudman about the technique, his books are worth getting hold of , also.
I remember you recommended Rudman's book, the bleaching vids are on a channel by Anthony Mournain.
I will take a look for the vids, thanks! A lot of my methods and info is derived from him for sure. I believe I have most if not all of his books. All are wonderful and I highly recommend!!!
@@Distphoto you reminded me of him with your rec. books vid, I lost my copies of his books in a house move, they're expensive now. I like him a lot.
A little gos a long way . Learn to print , learn how to expose and develop your film so you don’t have to reck your prints !
Agree, but this can also give the extra local contrast and punch to take a good print to an incredible print... Some of the greats used this technique in most of their work after all!
Might be best to learn how to properly use the technique so you don't wreck your prints!