The sulfur print reveals the distribution of sulfur as sulfide inclusions in the specimen. The sulfur print complements macroetch methods by providing an additional procedure for evaluating the homogeneity of a steel product.

Sulfur prints of as-cast specimens generally reveal the solidification pattern and may be used to assess the nature of deoxidation, that is, rimming action versus killed steel sulfur distributions.

Sulfur prints will reveal segregation patterns, including refilled cracks, and may reveal certain physical irregularities, for example, porosity or cracking.

The nature of metal flow, such as in various forging operations, can be revealed using sulfur prints of specimens cut parallel to the metal flow direction.

The sulfur print method is suitable for process control, research and development studies, failure analysis, and for material acceptance purposes.

The intensity of the sulfur print is influenced by the concentration of sulfur in the steel, the chemical composition of the sulfide inclusions, the aggressiveness of the aqueous acid solution, and the duration of the contact printing between the acid soaked emulsion coated paper and the ground surface of the specimen (this time is the order of seconds rather than minutes). Very low sulfur content steels will produce too faint an image to be useful for macrostructural evaluations. Selection of appropriate printing practices including selection of type of emulsion coated media, acid type and strength, will yield satisfactory prints. Very faint images in the sulfur print can be made more visible by scanning the sulfur print into a PC, and using a photo editor to increase the color saturation. Steels with compositions that produce predominantly titanium or chromium sulfides will not produce useful images.