Risa, you *claim* to be reading the archives, but now you are found out!
Or you didn't get to that message which I have posted 4 or 5 times (just
within the last week or so, too).
The hydrogen peroxide or HCL "heightener," "brightener," "intensifier,"
whatever you call it, is NOT. How this myth persists, beats me, but all
any of them do is get the color right away that otherwise appears in hours
or as long as a day when the print dries and is *oxidized* in the air.
Someone who shall be nameless here still owes me non-veggie dinner, for
betting that if he tore print in half, "intensified" half in peroxide, put
other half in drawer untouched, both would not match perfectly at end of
week.
(And don't tell me what "the books" say -- I could name two right off
perpetuate that silliness.)
The peroxide bath is useful for first class of cyanotype, to give students
idea of what the prints will ultimately look like, since the drydown in so
marked. But it continually amazes me that, despite my most explicit and
ardent explanations of how and why and what the peroxide does, some
students change that in their minds to mean they can't print if the
peroxide runs out. Really, nobody listens to a word I say around here!
Judy