Reversal processing for Liquid Light?

Has anyone ever reverse processed Liquid Light? I have an idea where I

would need a positive from the latent image recorded on a glass plate

coated with Liquid Light.

 

What are the chemicals/kits/temperatures/time involved?

I don't know of anyone who's done it and written about the process, but it should be similar to reversal processing any other B&W material -- first develop in a common developer, possibly modified with addition of some thiocyanate (to help prevent fogging in highlights by fixing away the silver that normal maximum exposure still doesn't activate), bleach the developed image with a solvent bleach such as potassium dichromate, potassium permanganate, or (according to some recipes) copper sulfate, in any case in a sulfuric acid solution (the bleaching mechanism seems to be conversion of developed silver to the soluble sulfate, hence the sulfuric acid), and clearing bleach residue and solubilized silver with a sulfite clearing bath, followed by either light fogging and redevelopment to completion, chemical fogging and redevelopment, or redevelopment with a fogging developer.

 

There's also an alternative process I've read of, though it's reported to have high fog in the highlights, that goes through first developer, toning the undeveloped halide with a thiocarbamide (aka thiourea) sepia toner (this works because the toned image doesn't bleach in the next step; common fogging developers leave an image that will still bleach), bleaching the original negative image with a rehalogenating bleach (though it slips my mind what exact bleach compound is used), and then fixing away the bleached negative image to leave the toned positive.

 

Either process should work the same with Liquid Light and other liquid emulsion products as with conventional B&W negative materials, though you'll almost certainly have to experiment for yourself to find appropriate first and second developer times, bleach times, etc.

Thank, it's good to know it could work. I'll try to research reversal processes in general if the crazy project this is a part of goes ahead. I'd just want to minimize the loss of precious material during the experimentation phase (Liquid Light isn't cheap, unfortunately).

You can, of course, test on small patches; with one melt and coat session using a tiny amount of Liquid Light, you can easily make enough test coatings to get the process down before coating anything of significant size. I'd start with coating watercolor paper, since it's cheap, works well for lots of alternate processes, has tooth to hold the emulsion (removing emulsion lifting from your list of problems while getting the reversal process sorted), and doesn't swell when wet (at least if you get the fiber reinforced sort that's common); coat one good sized sheet, then cut it up into 2 x 2 1/2 or so snips, plenty big enough to test the reversal process -- you'll get 64 test pieces from a single 16x20 sheet, and prints that size are still plenty large enough to inspect for fog in the highlights and so forth.

You are absolutely right, of course, about the small patches. And I always keep a reserve of watercolour paper for those days when the sun shines and I want to print some cyanotypes and Vandykes (just got a 8x10 monster to finally get some nice negs).

 

Anyway, I just realized that Liquid Light won't work for my project, unless there is a panchromatic version of the stuff. I absolutely need something that is red sensitive.

Sounds like you need to learn emulsion transfer, then, using either a panchro sheet film or Panalure (if you can still find some) for your emulsion source. Either that, or you need to make B&W internegatives from your color source (presumably a slide) using a panchro film before enlarging; then chromatic response of the Liquid Light won't matter.

 

Or you need to get familiar with dr5.com, who can reversal process most regular B&W films, and just mount the film onto your substrate.

 

Or you need to find a source of panchromatic glass plates -- Kodak just discontinued 4x5 plates in TMX emulsion a couple years ago, you might still find some stored away (astronomers were the last holdouts, I believe), and you might find a company like Efke or Foma can still make glass plates -- it's likely just a matter of a) ordering enough at once, and b) if their coating equipment can deal with glass instead of plastic sheet.

what about making digital negatives?

I tend to have a knee-jerk dislike of digital prints and negatives, but I'm also aware that, in part, that's because I've been looking at digital images since they were a Playboy centerfold converted to ASCII grayscale for print on a Teletype terminal.

 

If you can make a digital negative that will do the job for you, then you can bypass the entire projection step and use Liquid Light without any problems with color response. You also gain a huge boost in your ability to control the color mixing that goes into the final grayscale image.

 

I don't have a printer that will produce high enough quality for that application -- but my printer cost me $6 at a yard sale, two years ago.

The general idea is to make something that would be Autochrome-like. Any digital negative technique or Polaroid transfer technique (I do emulsion transfers already) just won't help. I could possibly coat the non-emulsion side of a normal 4x5 B&W sheet with my color layer, then add a protective layer, but I doubt the people at DR5 would dare to process this stuff.

 

As you see, I need panchromatic response and I need to process the film myself.

Or you need a film without antihalation that can be exposed through the base (as Lumiere's original glass Autochromes were), or a color layer that will pass processing chemicals.

 

At one point, I had discussed with another autochrome afficionado the possibility of making the filter layer from colored gelatin, randomly mixed, swelled, and pressed thin enough to develop through. That discussion got sidetracked into design of a machine for coating the gelatin color layer onto film (in the dark, of course), though I was skeptical about the design.

 

Try clips of HIE, at least as a first attempt, color layer on the base side, expose through the base?

You need to speak with Ryuji Suzuki, the homebrew emulsion-making champion.

One other thing - are you familiar with the intense pressure the Lumieres needed to apply to flatten the starch grains?

Here's a guy who's doing something similar, but using color film. (not sure why)

 

You might want to get with him.

 

http://www.bway.net/~jscruggs/specific.html

 

http://www.bway.net/~jscruggs/auto.html