> Wateman Watercolor: Gives very high contrast prints, which look "grainy"
> when dry, although smooth when wet.. I can get nice, deep browns, but
> shadows tend to loose detail. Is the image washing out during
> processing?
>
> Arches Watercolor: Gives very low constrast prints. I'm not getting
> tones lighter than lightish brown, and shadows aren't very dark. Nice
> smooth tones - not grainy. A ruddy brown.
..had the same experience with Arches Grain Torchoin, the nice dark brown
image after the first wash, washed away in the thiosulphate fixing (1-2
min. at max in the fixer) leaving a pale brown, low contrast image. (a
previous reaction mentioned the use of tween 20 to circumvent this,
haven't tried this myself),. According to the shop this high quality
water-colour paper is internally sized with gelatine. (seems contradictory
to the sugesstions of Terry) When I switched to Canson Fontaney this
problem disappeared (this is also watercolour paper, also sized but do not
know with what exactly)
Cor Breukel
http://ruly70.medfac.leidenuniv.nl/~cor/cor.html
"The Infrared Gallery"
http://ruly70.medfac.leidenuniv.nl/~cor/ir-gallery.html