 |
Satista+ The traditional Satista process was an economical hybrid of platinum and silver. The problem with combining these two metals is that the silver compound is in a nitrate form (one of the few common soluble compounds of silver) and the palladium is in the form of a chlorine compound. Silver nitrate immediately converts to insoluble silver chloride when mixed with a chlorine compound, thus the two cannot be combined in the emulsion. In order to get these two basically incompatible compounds to mix the traditional Satista process involved developing a pre-coated paper called Satista containing the ferric oxalate and the platinum or palladium chloride compounds in a developer of silver nitrate. Having a tray of silver nitrate around is messy (stains hands and everything else it touches) expensive, and prone to getting grungy due to iron and other things going in during development. For this reason the process has not enjoyed much modern usage. With the price of palladium now in the $900.00 per ounce range (December 2000) a more economical pt/pd process might be welcome. This new process I call Satista+ was inspired by my Extravagatype process where glycerin restrained the developer. (See The New Platinum Print by Sullivan and Weese) This process is at the moment considered EXPERIMENTAL! Not a whole lot of the details have been worked out and I am sure it is ripe for modification, especially by this rag-tag group of alt-photo miscreants! Please don't bug the B+S staff for any help or they'll lock me in the paint locker out back again for 2 or 3 days where I get to watch continuous re-runs of Papillion through-out the ordeal. Email me direct for help. In a nutshell: For an 8x10 print Dry as you would an ordinary pt or pd print. It must be very dry as the AFO will cause an unwanted print-out Expose under a negative in the ordinary manner Tape the exposed print down on a piece of window glass about 2 or three inches larger all around than the print Develop in: 10 ml glycerin The print will turn black and messy looking but the mess should wash off completely. Wash and fix in a very dilute sodium thiosulfate solution. (5 gm per Liter H2O) Clear in EDTA or your favorite clearing agent as you would a pt/pd print Comments They will bleach out in nitric acid whilst pd+pt prints will not. They will not bleach out in the fix like Kallitypes. The process seems to be much tamer than the traditional Kallitype process which has a tendency to go out of whack and disappear in the fix. As you are using only 3 drops of the expensive metal in the emulsion cost is considerably less than that of the traditional pd print. Reducing or increasing the noble metal beyond the 3 drops changes color. Less silver nitrate may be used. Glycerin can be obtained from your local drug store (chemist to you Brits!) We also sell it. The pd and pt solutions are the same as used
in standard pt or pd printing. There were numerous complaints in the olden days about folks entering Kallitypes into competition and calling them platinums! Tsk Tsk! I can see these masquerading as pd/pt prints as well. Forum for help and comments is at the B+S discussion
group at: |
|