Terry, no need to apologise, it suits you perfectly (and yes, I figured
out where the Napoleon came from).
> I am afraid that I genuinely cannot remember the article to which Mike
> refers It may have been in a BJP Annual which somebody seems to have
> walked off with. If I can find it I will send it. It certainly would not
> have had a different recipe from the one in TKOL. I have many recipes for
> the basic cyanotype recipe. But expressed in 'parts' they are nearly all
> the same.
If Mike's formula proves as good as his footnotes, we may all be changing
recipes. I find on page 80 of wherever the article I have came from,
footnote # 7:
"King, T. 'The Profit of the Alternative,' The Photographer, 30 (11), 46,
November 1991."
Thanking you kindly in advance.
> I remember Mike being sceptical that the range of tones and the clean
> highlights I was getting on Fabriano Artistico could have been from the
> standard recipe especially as the blue was, and is, a brilliant royal blue
> rather than the prussian blue one usually expects from a cyanotype. But it
> was the standard ferric ammonium citrate/potassium ferricyanide formula
> mixed with tap water.
Fabriano Artistico looks pretty good (do you double coat?), some others
may be equally so or better. The color, "royal" or "prussian," even with a
green tinge, is a factor not just of exposure but even more markedly of
the paper.
> The 'magic' is just getting the right negative ( 1.4 ) and giving it the
> right exposure ( until everything is dark blue or reversed), Then washing
> in tap water.
The 1.4 is not immutable -- each paper has its own "scale." But glad to
know you like the Fabriano Artistico so much. I'll add it to the menu.
Judy