cyanotypes and gum print
hi all, after four years of doing traditional photography. Christina's images in pH7, made me get my gear out of the garage and fridge. I made a simple cyanotype negative with inkjet, mixed the solution, coated, and exposed few minutes in the sun. And rinsing the paper revealed a quite ok image, just very contrasty. The I searched alt-list archives, googling, found some curves and got much better results. Slowly I started to remember the process, and now, after four years, can get better prints, than ages ago. I found several curves, but the best result I get from a cyano curve posted on this list in 2005. I'm printing with HP 1220C, as I used to do, colorizing the transparency with curves in PWP. The negatives, (and by now, I've made lots of them), are capable of getting full dmax and dmin, so the printer and my workflow works. Mainly the problem still is with curves and exposure All you nice people: is there a simple method to create a curve? I know about PDN, but if, after my first burst, I'll be doing next four years again only photography with holgas and dslrs, I'll better try something more simple. Also tried gum prints. The gum left from 2003, was still ok, found the watercolour tube, dichromate, which also turned out to be in full power, and mixed a small amout of ingredients. Coating was bit difficult, I did in the old times only few gum prints, because I never succeeded getting good prints. But now anyway I managed to do a print. After development, I immediately noticed, that it was my best print ever. Still, not a great one, but much better start than 2003. I'll be practising gum definitely more, but need help in this matter too. For a beginner (again), what's the best method to create single coat gum prints? The print I made, looks ok, but weak. I know by coating and exposing several layers, a better tonality can be achived, but for the moment, and getting on with this, I really could use some tips. thanks (and sorry for the long post) -matti
|