I'm interested in attempting sebattier on photographs in the dark room at school. I can't find any information (like an explanation of the process step-by-step). It would probably help if i knew how the word was spelled. Can anyone help? Thanks

-- CVF (Slipped5@aol.com), January 17, 2000

Answers

I think a look at Ed Buffaloe's very informative site will be helpful. It's

http://www.unblinkingeye.com

I seem to recall that the Sabatier effect is correctly spelled with one t (I'm not sure, though.) but it hardly matters because it's spelled this way or that all of the time.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), January 18, 2000.

Sabatier's name was regularly misspelled for over a century. Another excellent resource for understanding the intricacies of the sabatier effect is William L. Jolly's paper 'Solarization Demystified' at http://www.cchem.berkeley.edu/~wljeme/SOUTLINE.html.

-- (edbuffaloe@unblinkingeye.com), January 18, 2000.

The above link seems to be dead. Anyhow, solarisation is not the same as the Sabatier effect.

The Sabatier effect is caused by the exhaustion of developer in dark areas of the print or neg, and gives a thin line around tone boundaries. It requires a lack of agitation after the fogging exposure.

Solarisation is a partial reversal of the image by gross overexposure, and is quite difficult to achieve with modern films and papers. (But dead easy in Photoshop) :^)

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), February 08, 2000.

You may be having difficulty finding information on the Sabattier effect because it is frequently misreffered to as solarization. Sabatter can be done either to the negatives (look up photos by Man Ray) or as prints. Personally, I think doing the effect to the negatives is more difficult with 35mm, and I would try the print method first. The two give some different effects, so you may want to look into examples of both to find out what you prefer. The print method is simple in theory, but there are so many variables that it will always be unpredictable, so plan on going through a lot of paper to get one good print! You start by exposing a print. If you want the characteristic Sabattier outline, choose a negative with good contrast and clear shapes. I like to expose for a print about 2 stops too light, as you will be reexposing it later. Then submerge the print in developer, BUT DO NOT AGITATE! You want the bromide by-product to build up around the value changes. After about one-third of your developing time (this is one of the major variables), carefully remove your print, squeegie the developer off the top (you'll have to be careful not to leave squeegie marks), and then expose to light (but not through the negative) for a very short period of time (this is another major variable). In our lab, we would expose it for only a couple of seconds, but of course, how strong the light is, how close your print is to it, and even what the temperature of the light will be variables. You're not done yet. Then you need to resubmerge your print into developer for the remaining recommended time, this time agitating as usual. Then continue processing as usual. If you get graying out (I work with b&w, but this can be done with color) then try shorter exposures, particularly for the second exposure.

-- Holly Whiteside (hollywhiteside@oberlin.net), March 27, 2000.