Getting darker shadow areas with POP

Hi, I have started on the road with POP printing and I made my forst print a

couple of days ago. the only problem is that I am lacking any dark shadows. I

have exposed the POP so that the highlights when fully developed are not even

white any more so I have technically overexposed but the shadows stay a dark

brown, where they are black on a regular silver print. I expose, the rinse in

water for 15 mins, then dunk in a fresh bath of sodium thiosulphate for 15mins,

then another fresh bath of sodium thiosulphate for another 15mins. Then I wash

in water for an hour. After that I then tone with a 1:75 or so dilution of MACO

selenium toner for about 7 or 8 minutes. Then I take it out and wash for

another hour. Then I leave it to dry. I think I did all the processing right.

Is selenium just not a good idea for toning POP?

Define "dark brown". Don't expect a dmax past about 1.7 with POP. So the overall look is very different from a silver print that might have a dmax of 2.3.

 

On the other hand, your negative may simply not have enough density, so you might not be able to push the POP dark enough in the shadows without darkening your highlights unacceptably.

The area on the edge of the print (the bit uncovered by negative) is just a dark brown->about the same darkness as maybe instant coffee granules. Its definitely brown and not dark enough to be called black. I even left a scrap piece of POP out for a whole day in the sun to see how black it would go and nope, just dark brown. Maybe it's normal with POP? But I have seen some stuff on the web where there are shadows which look like black. Do you think this is digitally manipulated in? Also, the original negative is a T55 polaroid and the polaroid print is a bit contrasty with the highlights blown out white and some areas of shadow detail-less. In the pop though everything has detail. I know POP is supposed to require a density range of 1.8 but I don't know how 1.8 looks in real life and I don't have any access to any measuring equipment.

Hi Chuk,

thats what POP looks like. Deep purple-brown instead of black.

You may tone with gold before fixing, that brings it down to colder colours.

BtW, 15 mins of fixing seems definitly long. How strong is your fixer?

Regards,

Martin

The fixer is mixed 15g of crystals to 100 ml of water. I think the selenium toner might actually bleach the image a bit. Maybe I should try gold instead?

Gold for reddish colours. Platinum toner for silvers.

Did this today and toned in Gold<div></div>

see here for better upload

Thanks for the pic! It seems that pic has decent dark tones in it! Maybe I should try toning in gold or platinum. Does anyone know how to mix platinum toner or get it in a ready made form? I live in Japan and I think it might be a bit hard to get some...

Bostick & Sulivan in USa. Will ship it.