And just like that…she came alive.

[Bingtan]

Mike / John / Nawagi / Andy!

She came alive! with all of your help! I mean sure it doesn’t look much right now but it’s a real image!!!!! I wonder though, are the blacks a function of the fuming as well or is it on the exposure?

Here’s what I came up with after what Andy shared on the fuming part.

Given my working temperatures in the tropics are at 35C summer day:

1) Iodine (Silica) – 20 secs.
2) Bromine (Silica) – 7 secs.
3) Iodine – 5 secs.

Exposure:

1) Ev 8.4 – 75 secs. (ISO 0.05)

Fuming:

1) 70C at 4 mins 20 secs.

I mean obviously there are a ton of polishing marks but it’s a good start! I was about to pull my hair the past 2 days looking for a point of reference never having seen a real image before.

When I was about going crazy, she pulled me right back in…

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[nawagi]

Congratulations… you have my deepest sympathy.

NWG

[Bingtan]

Thank you nwg…i feel the road is going to be long and winding but it’s going to be so incredible if I’d get to pull this off…would you mind sharing tips on how to improve the image quality?

[nawagi]

Keep careful notes on your work – every aspect from buffing through sensitizing. Note what succeeds and what fails.

Test Test Test – both fuming and exposure tests will teach you a great deal. A typical NWG test plate has a set of four different fuming (Br) times along one axis and four different exposure times on the perpendicular axis – that’s 16 choices. Pick the best fuming time and exposure combination as a starting point, then expose 3 plates: one a stop over, one even, one a stop under- one of these plates will be beautiful, but you earned it.

Be a consistent operator- There are so many variables in the process, the only way to control them is being systematic. For example, buff your plates the same way every time- same rouge, same stroke count, as close to same environment (temp, RH) as possible. Ditto with fuming and guilding. And when you decide to alter the process, alter one ONE thing at a time. Every aspect of a Dag is connected to every other aspect. Frantically changing a bunch of work flows willy nilly will produce poor results every time, or a “lucky” plate that is unrepeatable.

Read Read Read – A nice shiny plate ready to work costs $50. A hour reading on the inet = free. This site has terrific information throughout all its pages. The Dag. Society also has very strong resources for the contemporary worker through their inexpensive reprints. Get them all.

Get a mentor. I have been very fortunate to meet and work with some terrific Dag artists. They all made me a better operator by generously sharing their successes and failures. They (and I) pay this forward through a site like this.

NWG

[Bingtan]

Nawagi,

thank you so much for that response. I will take all of that advice to heart. Right now, I spent the week properly “calibrating” and learning my fuming. So it seems like Iodine, I’ve lessened the chemicals to give me a good enough start for golden yellow to a tints of rose – I’m hitting between 20-25 secs. 20 is golden yellow. 25 it starts having some tints of rose.

It’s my Bromine that I’m still having a hard time at the moment. I’ve diluted it to something far less strong and I’m hitting somewhere at 1:30 minutes to 2:15 minutes where I get the nice even magenta.

It’s slow paced but it’s getting there…

Thank you for now and will keep you posted with the next plate I make…

Sincerely,

Bing

[Author]

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