Re: Paper - baby oil Digi Negs

[Katharine Thayer <kthayer@pacifier.com>]

I'm a little late to this discussion, but for ten years or more all  
my negatives (including color separations for tricolor gum) were  
paper negatives oiled with mineral oil (baby oil is just thinned  
mineral oil with that "baby" fragrance added).   I've detailed my  
oiling technique on the list more than once, so won't repeat it here,  
but will just repeat that a properly oiled paper negative (the oil  
well rubbed into the paper with heat) will be as dry as a sheet of  
waxed paper when finished and will not lose a whit of its  
transparency or tonality over months or even years.

However, if you just oiled on the back, it sounds like you didn't oil  
the negative sufficiently;  the oil should penetrate the paper  
completely and be rubbed and heated until dry.   No harm done, just  
oil again.

Other thoughts from my experience:  (1) don't use paraffin; it marks  
and scratches too easily. (2) don't use the blocks of yellow beeswax;  
it will discolor your negatives and change the contrast; instead use  
the beads of white microcrystalline beeswax that you can buy at an  
art supply store.  But after trying all these things,  I still find  
oiling to be the easiest and most reliable and fuss-free way of  
making paper negatives transparent, and there's a bonus: your hands  
will be nice and soft when you're done.  FWIW,
Katharine



On Aug 24, 2009, at 8:17 PM, Jacek Gonsalves wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I've got some Epson Quality plain paper and oiled them using baby  
> oil on the back to make transparent digital negs. Once I've used  
> them, they dry up over time and become less transparent.
> Just wondering if I re-oiling them would it be ok to reuse them or  
> would the oil somehow affect the desnity of the ink as the oil  
> seaps through?
>
> What do you do with your digi negs paper oiled negs once your done?  
> How do you store them?
> Cheers
> Jacek