Making a salted paper print: from setting up the shot to finished print

This video shows the entire process from capturing an image on 4x5" x-ray film, developing the negative, coating/sensitizing paper with salt and silver nitrate solutions, exposing the print using an UV exposure box, developing the print and finishing it. The final part shows the wet and dry print to demonstrate the effects of dry-down in salted paper prints.

Contents:
0:06 Setting up the shot and capturing the image on film
1:39 Developing the negative
3:44 Finished negative on the light table
4:07 Cutting the paper
4:37 Coating the paper with the salt solution
6:31 Coating the salted paper with silver nitrate solution/sensitizer
8:30 Exposing the negative onto the paper using a contact frame
9:55 Checking the exposure of the print
10:05 Developing the print
10:34 Checking print development progress under white light
11:45 Start of the was process and white light goes on again
12:33 Preparing the print for drying by blotting it and taping it to a glass mirror
13:20 Finished print; first shown wet and later compared to the dried print (13:41)

Materials used:
For the negative...
Carestream Ektascan B/RA x-ray film, 8x10" cut down to 4x5" for this image
Film developer: Instant Mytol, dilution 1+0 (i.e. undiluted stock); development time 9 minutes
Film fixer: Fuji Hunt Negacolor RA C41 fixer, diluted 1+3

For the print...
Schut 'Salland' 300 g/m2 printing paper
Non-iodated table salt, sodium citrate and silver nitrate
Citric acid for washing the print
Fixer for the print is the same fixer as for the film (see above)
Gummed tape to dry the print flat (used for taping water color paper to an easel, but also popular for drying fiber-based silver gelatin prints)
This video shows the entire process from capturing an image on 4x5" x-ray film, developing the negative, coating/sensitizing paper with salt and silver nitrate solutions, exposing the print using an UV exposure box, developing the print and finishing it. The final part shows the wet and dry print to demonstrate the effects of dry-down in salted paper prints.

Contents:
0:06 Setting up the shot and capturing the image on film
1:39 Developing the negative
3:44 Finished negative on the light table
4:07 Cutting the paper
4:37 Coating the paper with the salt solution
6:31 Coating the salted paper with silver nitrate solution/sensitizer
8:30 Exposing the negative onto the paper using a contact frame
9:55 Checking the exposure of the print
10:05 Developing the print
10:34 Checking print development progress under white light
11:45 Start of the was process and white light goes on again
12:33 Preparing the print for drying by blotting it and taping it to a glass mirror
13:20 Finished print; first shown wet and later compared to the dried print (13:41)

Materials used:
For the negative...
Carestream Ektascan B/RA x-ray film, 8x10" cut down to 4x5" for this image
Film developer: Instant Mytol, dilution 1+0 (i.e. undiluted stock); development time 9 minutes
Film fixer: Fuji Hunt Negacolor RA C41 fixer, diluted 1+3

For the print...
Schut 'Salland' 300 g/m2 printing paper
Non-iodated table salt, sodium citrate and silver nitrate
Citric acid for washing the print
Fixer for the print is the same fixer as for the film (see above)
Gummed tape to dry the print flat (used for taping water color paper to an easel, but also popular for drying fiber-based silver gelatin prints)

Some notes on the process:
* I used x-ray film for this image, but any regular photographic film works just as well - with the exception of Kodak TMAX100 as it contains a UV-blocking compound in the film base. X-ray film allowed me to show the film development process as it can be developed under deep red light.
* The studio strobes are an old set of Falcon Eyes 200Ws units; I set them at about 50-75% for this shot, which was at f/22 and accounted for half a stop of bellows correction. The strobes were triggered with a generic (eBay) 433MHz trigger set.
* I used a Sekonic L358 to measure flash exposure.
* The camera is a combination of Sinar F (rear) and Sinar Norma (front) parts with a Schneider Symmar 210/5.6 lens.
* The negative has a sufficiently long tonal scale (contrast) for the salt print process. This means that it virtually cannot be printed onto silver gelatin paper, as it would require less contrast than grade 00 can offer. This is the #1 problem I see with salt prints: use of an inadequate negative, resulting in short print exposure times and low contrast/low dmax in the print.
* The UV exposure box uses an array of quick-start Philips UV tubes hooked up to a cheap (eBay again) digital timer.
* The video was shot using a Canon EOS 7D and 15-85 EF/s lens. Its high-ISO performance is mediocre by today's standards. I'm not a videographer and I currently have very limited (absent) interest in digital photography, so no upgrades are planned...

Music credit: Zoltán Kodály - Dances of Galánta. Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (cond. Adrian Leaper). Naxos 8.550520