>Floating for both sensitising and coating is only feasible in terms of large
>amounts of the finished paper. If one is thinking in terms of one or two, it is
>far easier and far less extravagant to use a brush to coat and to sensitise
>using the formulation in 'The Albumen and Salted Paper Book' as the basis for
>further exploration. The albumen from one egg can be used to coat a number of
>large prints.
>> For a higher gloss,
>
>In my practice I try to avoid the gloss.
Terry, If you are attempting to keep alive the aesthetic qualities of
historic processes, it seems odd to me that you would teach albumen
printing as you have described. The gloss of albumen paper is one of its
most important aesthetic characteristics. The search for a printing
process that could render the same fine detail as the daguerrotype is what
lead to the development of the wet-plate / glossy albumen combination.
It takes about 500 mL of solution to succesfully float a 9 X 12 sheet of
paper in a 10 X 15 inch glass tray. One dozen eggs will make this much. I
can double coat at least 50 sheets of paper with this amount and the
albumen will last many months if refrigerated. You can sensitize the paper
on as little as 100 mL of silver nitrate in the tray and less if you float
it on a sheet of glass. I wouldn't call these amounts extravagant.
I believe it when you say your brush coated matte finish paper works fine
with a negative DR of 2.00. Double coated glossy paper however can print
with much deeper "blacks" and require a little longer scale negative.
I realize that brush coating is easier, but if you want to give your
students a real *feel* for the process, with practice and patience,
floating is still the best method for making albumen prints.
Mike Robinson
Toronto, Canada
robkiss@io.org