Silver Chloride like Silver Bromide
is a milky liquid
But on immersion in the fixer it clears like glass
letting the full color and texture of the coated
material show

Silver Print On
Glazed Ceramic Tile Coated With
Lucenta Silver Chloride emulsion
and Processed 20 Years ago !
It was given no varnish overcoat whatsoever

Silver print
is a 1.5 x enlargement
from a 6x7 bw negative

Liquid silver emulsion type: Pure Clean silver chloride.

exposure time: 90 seconds
at F4.0

Light source: 100w ordinary incandescent bulb.

DATA:
About 30 years ago when I started making silver emulsion I got into the habit of dehydrating them for  dry storage, a tedious expensive and time consuming task, but the only  way to have uncoated silver emulsions always fresh yet  ready to be liquefied for use. (when you order Lucenta silver chloride emulsion
it will come fresh in dried form, you just add water to make it ready)


The whites even after so many years are still very clean. The blacks
of silver chloride are much superior than blacks on silver bromide
prints, all experts will agree to that, But the whites are hardly ever mentioned, and they also are much more brilliant on silver chloride than on silver bromide.

Silver image above was produced Directly on a commercial 6x6 inches glazed  ceramic tile which comes with a glaze made opaque with titanium oxide, a high temperature   pigment that yields an extraordinary pure white color.



Classic Method of Coating Of Glass and
Tiles with silver Based Liquid Photo Emulsion
How To Make Photographic Glass Plates
see Lucenta Emulsion Manual

A large glass plate is first leveled carefully using a spirit leveler.
any liquid placed on this leveled plane will equalize itself (as long
it is in liquid mobile phase) giving a layer of even thickness all throughout its body.

For rapid setting of the gelatin emulsion, the leveled plate is chilled
with ice water or any other means. The cold from the plate will transfer to the liquid gelatin in the emulsion, coagulating it rapidly
(in 5 minutes for glass and 10 minutes for the thicker tile). Once set
the gelatin will not run, it has been immobilized, so the coated glass
or tile can be stood to dry. Drying in a cool place of course, (below melting point of gelatin) If drying with air from a fan, air should not be over 26c for the first hour. by the third hour the coating should be almost dried and warm air 30-35c can be applied.

For Coating 20 tiles of the above
size I dissolved dried Lucenta thus:

Lucenta Dried Silver Chloride Gelatin Emulsion .....10 grams
distilled or filtered rain water..............................95 ml
ethyl alcohol ( for easy spreading).........................5 ml


I let the dried emulsion soak in the solvent for IO minutes, with occasional agitation, then I placed the mixture in a hot water bath
to melt the emulsion, which it does in about 10-15 min, at 40-50c.
After melting its temperature was stabilized to about 35 - 40c for
coating. (35 c in summer if the room is above 23 c/ 40c in winter if
room is at 20c or below)

One more of the so many advantages of Lucenta in Dried form is that there is no bubbles when coating it. Liquid emulsion produce bubbles because the bottle has been shaken countless of times during transportation at various temperatures during storage.

5 ml of the silver melted liquid photo emulsion was poured gently
on the center of the tile (not thrown or splashed on it) and the warm
pool of emulsion had spread to all four edges of the tile using my
finger. (Lucenta is non toxic) and the tile was placed on top of the
chilled and leveled plate where the emulsion was set.
Coating 20 tiles takes less than 10 minutes with a little practice.

Needless to say, before coating the silver emulsion the tile, glass,
or any other glazed ceramic object must first receive a first class substrate ( sub ) or pre coat to hold the gelatin silver emulsion in
place during processing and washing.
For First Class subbing on glazed ceramics see
LUCENTA FORMULARY

After Drying The tile was exposed under a negative and was processed as described in left column (see)


Drying Coated Silver Emulsions in Less than
12 hours is of the greatest importance.

Gelatin is a foodstuff, if left humid (especially in hot weather)
exposed to the air in a thin layer, it will begin to spoil. Below is
a short list of what happens to silver in a little degraded vehicle:

- the gelatin comes off during processing even with a good sub
- the dried coated emulsion looses contrast
- the dried coated emulsion develops age fog rapidly
- the dried coated emulsion changes speed
- the dried coated emulsion develops mould during storage.
______________________________________________________

Archival Silver Images On Fired Porcelain
Results After 20 Years

The problem I had to Coat the Porcelain plates ( shown above and below ) with liquid silver emulsion was twofold.

First:

Vitrified porcelain is translucent, when a projected image from an enlarger is thrown on it, It gives a diffused un sharp image. Problem was solved by including an opaque body in the emulsion to act as light receptor,  very much like fiber paper is, hence, the corn starch in the composition below.

With CORN STARCH in the emulsion, the finished image takes water
color very easy, and can be colored also with pencils, just like paper.

Second:

These beautiful Plates are hand made, since their surface is not
flat and its surface is uneven all over, they could not be coated as easy as the tile above. If I did so, It would be disastrous. If Instead I Flowed the emulsion on the plate and after covering its whole surface, I let the excess drip on one end and afterwards stand it erect to dry, that also would be catastrophic.

In the first case, the thicker pools of silver halide left in the deeper parts of the surface would never completely fix, so In a time span of 3 months to 5 years, yellow, orange, or sepia stains along with purple patches would appear in the image. (residual light sensitive silver halide left in the image that continues to darken at a pace proportional to illumination conditions )

In the second instance the stains and patches would appear exactly
and only at the end where I let the emulsion drip after coating, at that point  the population of silver halide is also uneven and catastrophically denser.


To solve this problem and produce permanent images, I would have
to brush coat the emulsion, the strokes would have to leave a thin, very thin, I mean extremely thin and even layer of emulsion on the uneven surface of the plate, but the emulsion would also have to be special. It would have to dry fast so it would not drip and also it would have to have an exceptionally great covering power to allow me to brush so thin. To that effect I used CLEAN and FRESH LUCENTA CHLORIDE in dried form, which has great covering power,

I also added the ethyl alcohol in the composition below to speed up drying of the thin brushed layer. Besides those valuable tools I would also have to avoid leaving local pockets of emulsion on the plate's surface. Any too thick remains of emulsions were wiped even or off by the brush itself. I gave all the plates 3 thin coats of the best emulsion I ever made specifically for this difficult cases.
I would not use even my own best silver bromide emulsion for this
job.

I had to be sure that the thin and even layers of emulsion left would fix perfectly. That was about 20 years ago, and judging by the good condition of the plates today, I was right !


Liquid Silver Emulsion Coating Composition:

Distilled or filtered rain water........................60 ml
Ethyl alcohol...............................................40 ml
Powdered corn starch...................................1 grams
LUCENTA SILVER CHLORIDE in dried form..... 10 grams

The finished silver images on the porcelain plates were given an
Acrylic Varnish overcoat so they could be cleaned with water throughout the years. They have been kept for the last 20 years
under a typical indoor Illumination (450 LUX) all this time without any adverse effects. I consider these Hand Coated Silver Images
on Ceramics: ARCHIVAL, thanks to the right choice of liquid silver
emulsion and the method of applying it.

How to make
your own

photographic
emulsion

with
Lucenta Gelatine
and silver nitrate

see links below

Alternative Photography Emulsion - How to Make it Yourself
how to make your own 35mm negative film or glass plates

Lucenta Silver
Chloride Liquid
Photo Emulsion

How To Make
Archival Silver
Images on
Natural Wood

How
To Make
Art on
Coffee
Wood

Commercial Liquid Silver bromide or
chlorobromide gelatin emulsions are far
from the best, mainly because
they are hardly ever fresh, their level of  fog
is usually too high to yield absolutely pure
specular whites on development.

To make matters worse, liquid light
sensitive emulsion manufacturers are
under pressure to make fast emulsions
for enlarging, which of  course results in
whites being extremely  bright grays, 
instead of the pure brilliant  whites of the
much slower emulsions.


Further more
When Liquid emulsions age in the shelf
some of the silver crystals are reduced
spontaneously,  These grains tend to fix
all types of fog and stains.

To keep the Purest  whites on the final
image The stains we have to struggle
against , are listed below:

A) developer stains

B) Thiosulfate stains (its double salts)

C) The Natural Gelatin coloration
(pale yellow)

D) The stain or color of the varnish used
to protect the final image

E) safelight fog , the slightest gray fog will
act as a  dye mordant to fix developer and
sulphur stains.
    

Fortunately we do not have to deal with
support stains because glazed ceramics
are absolutely inert and permanent.

The cleanest emulsion giving the purest
possible  whites with the gelatin silver
process is Silver Chloride. ( with out
spectral sensitization ) this is undisputable.
The slowest the emulsion, the purer the
whites. In my 20 year study of silver images
on glazed ceramics, the purest whites after
20 years  were retained  by silver chloride
emulsions, followed by silver bromide
emulsions of the very  slow type.

Today, I would use only clean , slow ,
color blind , ( blue sensitive only )  silver
chloride to attain the purest  permanent
whites.

With silver bromide and chlorobromide
emulsions one can get away some times
by adding a lots of benzimidazole nitrate
to the emulsion and to the developer.
(instead of benzimidazole, -benzotriazole
may help too)

Why is silver chloride Cleaner ?

this is not the place to deal with this
question, but just consider the following:

exposed Silver chloride is reduced in
about 30 seconds, that is the developing
time of Lucenta  Chloride, in such a short
developing time  the gelatin does not suffer
and will fix no stain or acquire fog. compare
it to silver bromide which reduces in 90
seconds, plenty of time in which the gelatin
fixes oxidation products.  ( Besides having to
sustain a furious weakening alkali attack for
a longer time )

similar dynamics occur in the fixing bath.
Silver  chloride is dissolved out much more
rapidly than silver bromide.

_________________________________

Now we will deal with each type of stain
one by one. Against developer stains:

Stain Resistant Developer

I Worked out this developer for Lucenta
Chloride and is also good for other
emulsions in liquid form.

Dektol (powder) strait solution.... .200 ml
10% solution of citric acid................50 ml
25% solution of kitchen salt............50 ml

This developer is extraordinarily clean.
the citrate formed is an antioxidant, the table
salt keeps the whites from being reduced.
Just because it keeps colorless, Do not
overwork it.  the mixture keeps well for a
long time. Instead of Dektol, Agfa's Newtol
or ilford's Bromophen or any other good
paper developer can be used.
Do not overdevelop.

Against Thiosulfate Stains

After the developer, rinse rapidly in plain
water, transfer to a stop bath of O.5%
acetic acid for 20-30 seconds
rinse rapidly in plain water,
place in fixer bath ( with or without hardener)
for 5min, agitate frequently.
transfer now to a FRESH UNUSED BATH
OF FIXER for 5 minutes.( Capital Importance
that the last bath be fresh and unused )
agitate frequently.
-rinse rapidly and
-immerse gently in sodium carbonate bath
of 1% strength for 30 seconds.
(if your emulsion can not stand it, omit it )
-wash gently, each piece in its individual
tray for about 30 minutes. Do not wash
violently because if you have not used a first
class substrate to hold the emulsion,
it may come off . be very careful washing.
-wipe off excess of water gently with pure
filter paper like the one used to filter coffee.
-le it dry.

Against The Natural yellow Color
of the Emulsion Gelatin

-Do not dilute your emulsion with gelatin.
-Do not coat thicker than necessary
for example, for a tile 6x6 in. 5ml of liquid
Lucenta silver Chloride emulsion is
for superb blacks enough. If you use 10 ml,
drying time will be prolonged 100%, more
developer and thiosulfate will be absorbed
also by about 100%, and the natural optical
yellow density of the gelatin itself will also
increase 100%.

Against Safe Light Fog Stain

The minimum of silver gray fog will degrade
the whites because often it will act as magnet
to precipitate and anchor oxidation and sulphur
yellow, light cream, or orange stains.
-shade your work during developing and
test your safelight often.
-also test you liquid silver emulsion. It may
have  developed an important amount of
fog in just 24 hours while in liquid form,
particularly   if you have heated it for too long
o went too hot  ( over 50c )
-emulsion may be in the brink of fog because
of inadequate storage conditions in store shelf.
This will never happen with Lucenta Chloride,
because it comes in dry form: it is always fresh !

Against Varnish Stain

Unless you keep the final silver image in a
case behind glass, you will need to varnish it.
as image over coat on white glazed ceramics
Never use:

-polyurethane varnish oil based
-linseed oil varnish
-poppy seed oil varnish

All of the above will yellow when applied
in thick layers in about 3 years kept in
interiors at an average home indoor
illumination of about 450 LUX .
Directly under sunlight at about 100.000 LUX
they will yellow in about 2 weeks.

the thicker the coat, the more yellow the color.
poppy seed is the best of the above. All of the
above are good for silver images on wood,
if applied thin. Even on Glazed ceramics with
beige or cream color glaze, But not for titanium
white ceramic glazes (snow white)
I have never observed a bad chemical reaction
(bleaching the metallic silver)  when using the
above directly on the image. ( but my test can
go back only 20 years)


If you have to apply an oil varnish on silver
images produced on glazed ceramics, for
archival purposes I recommend the following
way in which the oil will never come into
contact with the silver image:

-After drying the silver image
coat it with a 10% plain gelatin solution
-Let it dry completely.

-Coat it now with rectified drying
poppy seed oil very thinly. Use your finger
and do not use more oil than what the finger
can spread uniformly. These oils have great
body and great resistance even in extremely
thin layers which will not yellow strongly.
In this way, the image will be very well
protected and can be cleaned with water
throughout the years. I would give such
image processed as directed above:
a life expectancy well over 150 years !

if You want increase its life expectancy even
more, sulphur tone the black silver image,
wash thoroughly for 1 hour, dry it ,  coat with
colorless  gelatin, dry it and oil varnish it
as above or acrylic varnish it as below:


Acrylic Varnish Overcoat

the Great Advantage of acrylic lacquers
or varnishes is its great resistance to
discoloration or yellowing. But even  Acrylics
(some types) when coated too  thick will
show a slight pale yellow cast overtime.
They do not, as rule, adhere so good to
gelatin, as oils do.

I will only mention one of the acrylics I have
tested and just because it is available
everywhere. This is " Krylon " clear coat
for photographs. its adhesion to gelatin
is not great, but it will not peel off by itself.
It is acceptable. (recommended) no adverse
effects coated directly on the silver image.
Even after many years, the coated layer can
be scratched if not cleaned with care,
But its strongest point is
its great resistance to yellowing.
It is extraordinary indeed.  Its  other bad
point is its terrible smell when sprayed
from the can, it has to be  done  outdoors.
spray it very thin. do not  over do it .
But Before, for extreme permanence, coat
the silver image first with plain colorless
gelatin solutions as described above for
the oil varnish.

A bisphenol crossed with a polyamide
is probably the best over coat
for silver gelatin images.
It does not attack the silver image, it adheres
to gelatin in an incredible manner.
it can not be scratched with the finger nail
when finally dried, and in thin layers does
not yellow, It has the brilliance of glass.
but is not available everywhere and is not
as easy to use. Part A must be mixed with
part B, right before use. the mixture does
not keep. Must be mentioned for the record.

ARCHIVAL SILVER IMAGES ON GLASS

Silver Images on glass are very easy to
make archival, coat the silver image with a
10% colorless plain gelatin solution and
dry it thoroughly, then just frame the silver
image in contact with a glass of the same
size. You can apply hot silicone to the
edges of the glass to seal all entrance of
air and water.
Image life expectancy of a well fixed and
washed silver image so treated should
be well  beyond 400 years.

If  You Like To Know More About
Lucenta Chloride

The Gaslight Paper Photo Emulsion
now in Liquid Form

Go here: Make Your Own Photographic Paper
Lucenta Silver Emulsion Instruction Manual
Alternative Photography

Make Pictures on wood, cloth , fiber paper,
tiles, glass, stones, canvas, plates,
Expose in contact with a negative, or enlarge
by projecting the negative image onto the
light sensitive surface. After Exposing develop
and fix in the ordinary photographic manner.

 

 

   Buy
  100 grams
  of Lucenta
  Dried Emulsion
  To Make 1 liter
  for
  $ 99 USD

  Plus Shipping.

 

Info on Lucenta Chloride Emulsion

All works of art shown in this page, is the Original Work of Artist Saul Bolaños. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this image(s) or item(s) or design(s) may be copied, retransmitted, re posted,
duplicated or otherwise used without the express written approval of the author.

© 2005 -2006, Saul  Bolaños