fred_nirque

Excellent points, Don - you and I are contemporaries as students (my tenure was from '71-73), before the universal days of RC paper. In the last 30-odd years I have benn fully involved with restoration/preservation of images, and have seen some diabolical happenings with resin-coated stock. Given slightly adverse conditions (humidity, temperature variations), the stuff simply cracks up - literally.

I take your notes on "archival" even further - the English language has a perfectly good term for something long-lasting, and that is "permanent". As I've mentioned in posts elsewhere, the dictionary meaning of "archival" is that the object referred to as such is suitable for storage. Nothing more or less. There is no time frame implied in the traditional meaning of the word. It only means that the object is inert, and will not in itself contribute to its own degredation or the degredation of objects that it is stored with.

The spin-doctors of the current crop of dubiously permanent printing processes are gaining great mileage out of that word "archival" with its incredibly permanent sounding name, knowing full well that they will win any law suit on the definition of the word when (and not if!) their product fails.

Given the earlier ignorance of the effects of acid-ridden glues and mountboards, I never cease to be amazed as to how sturdy a well processed & washed untoned print can be. I have frequently seen prints 100+ years old only slightly yellowed but with full image tone. The same will never be true with contemporary resin-coated B&W or colour prints.

Fred.

Sam,

You cannot develop standard B&W film in C-41 chemistry. Normally, B&W film ends up with a metallic silver image, chromogenic film like XP-2 processed in C-41 ends up with the silver bleached out and replaced proportionately with dye, much the same as full colour negative film. The two are totally different in development, latitude and result.

You could, however, process XP-2 in B&W chemistry and end up with a metallic silver negative (but why would you bother, with so many brilliant, dedicated B&W films to choose from?).

Fred.

Try adding bromine or chlorine to the sensitizing process along with the iodine.

Pure silver? - wow! But make sure it is pure - like 99%+. An alloy may affect things.

Fred.

As you most likely have found out by now, fixing the bleached image will reduce the newly formed silver halide. That's what fixing does - it removes silver halides.

It looks as though you have partially bleached the print (nice pic, btw) and left it at that - part silver, part halide image.

For permanence, perhaps take the bleaching a bit further, though not to completion, and then use a warm sepia re-developer to render the image into a stable, light-fast compound. A thiourea/hydroxide based formula, such as Kodak's Sepia part B, or make up your own @ sodium hydroxide 10g, thiourea 10g, borax 250g, water 1000ml to start with. Varying the proportion of hydroxide to thiourea changes end tone: more hydroxide in proportion = cooler, more thiourea in proportion = warmer. Caution: thiourea is poisonous, sodium hydroxide is caustic. Excercise care in use.

A personal gripe, here, in the use of the word "archival" vs "permanent". The dictionary ascribes a definition of "suitable for storage" to the word "archival". There is no indication of longevity traditionally associated with it. It just means that the article will not in itself contribute to its own instability or that of other articles stored with it. It doesn't mean that the object itself is permanent, just that it is inert.

"Archival" has been cleverly hijacked by the spin-doctors of the producers of the myriad unproven newer printing methods (particularly digital) to imply some huge longevity factor. Of course, in a few years when the law suits start landing they will just point to the dictionary & say that they never guaranteed permanency, just suitability for storage. This will stand up in court.

Fred.