Does the addition of sodium chloride in Dektol have any effect on print tone?

-- r (ricardospanks1@yahoo.com), January 04, 2002

Answers

No answer but some specualtion. Sodium chloride is a restrainer, supposedly quite similar to pottasium bromide. I would imagine that adding sodium chloride would warm image tones (and might necesitate somewhat heavier exposures). Good luck, DJ.

-- N Dhananjay (dhananjay-nayakankuppam@uiowa.edu), January 04, 2002.

Adding further speculation.

The result depends on the paper you use. If you use purely bromide paper, the image gets minimum impact. If you use chlorobromide paper, your image may get colder tone in highlights. Either way, chloride emulsions are slower than bromide ones, so I don't expect to see much difference in the result. Multigrade papers may exhibit different tones depending on the contrast, since relative emulsion speeds change with filter setting. After all, restrainers and antifoggants seem much less studied than developing agents, so tedious experiments seem necessary to conclude anything here.

Just another useless posting.

-- Ryuji Suzuki (rsuzuki@rs.cncdsl.com), January 04, 2002.