U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: Paper negatives (Re: Tricolor gum, order of layers)

Re: Paper negatives (Re: Tricolor gum, order of layers)



Hi Laura,
I hope Keith will answer this as he's done more oiling with baby oil than I have; I just did that one as a demo for my site. My previous oiling method used mineral oil (full strength) and involved a lot of rubbing and heating to make the oil fully penetrate the paper, as it's quite viscous. So with the baby oil I started out the same way; I put the paper in a flat-bottomed tray and poured some oil over it to spread it and rub it as I would with the mineral oil, but I found that the baby oil was much less viscous and penetrated instantly, and that I was left with excess oil in the negative. Even after much wiping with paper towels there was still oil oozing out of the paper. I made a mental note for next time, to not pour oil on the paper but to apply it by putting some oil on a cotton ball or folded gauze and apply it that way; the oil is thin enough that I think that would be plenty. Hope that helps.

P.S. I just saw Guido's note, and from his description the white technical oil sounds very similar to baby oil, a watered-down mineral oil (what we call paraffin oil in the US) without the baby fragrance.
Katharine



On Oct 5, 2008, at 7:30 AM, Laura Valentino wrote:

Since I just recently paid about $150 to have 40 sheets of 11x17 OHP film shipped to me, I gotta try the paper negative. I have a box of this formerly named photo quality inkjet paper. How do I oil it?

Thanks, Laura

Katharine Thayer wrote:

On Oct 3, 2008, at 8:31 AM, Katharine Thayer wrote:

Here's an oiled negative made on this paper compared with an oiled negative made on a different paper that I tried and rejected, when I thought my old favorite had been discontinued (not realizing it was still available under the new name). Second graphic on the page.

http://www.pacifier.com/~kthayer/html/Paperneg2.html

These are printed with color inks.

I should probably add that these negatives were scanned as film, (using transmitted light) not as prints.