> I have been experimenting with albumen. The papers I tried have been
> Strathmore 500 1 ply Drawing Bristol, Plate finish, Rives BFK and some hot
> press water colour papers ( Fabriano, Arches and Strathmore), all of which
> coated beautifully, printed great but when it hit the fixer (sodium
> thiosulfate) it faded into a gray mist. I tried to size the papers with
> gelatin, it was no help, the fogging continued and it added a new problem,
> blistering in the wash ( the temp. was consistent ).
> The Strathmore drawing has worked the best but it is very difficult
> to coat. The second it hits the solutions it curls up into a soda straw. I
> have tried folding the edges and it has helped some but it is almost
> impossible to keep the solutions off the back.
> I have been looking at a great number of Albumen prints and have
> noticed that the paper is very thin. Are there any paper equivalents today?
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Jonathan
>
I have been using the Strathmore 500 series drawing, but not the Bristol.
The paper shouldn't really matter as it is just something for the albumen
to adhere to. I have printed on a number of different papers and pretty
much all seemed to work well enough. As far as the thinness, I believe the
thinnest paper would give the smoothest surface, as when the albumen dries
it becomes very thin and can follow all the minor surface irregularities
of the paper. I made some prints on Rising Stonehenge, a 140 lb. paper
which while it started out as a hot press, after going through the
processing the surface looked more like cold press. The albumen's surface
mimicked the surface of the paper and was "rougher" in appearance than
prints on a smooth, thin paper. This may be why historically, albumin
prints were on thin paper (for sharpness). Luis?
As far as the "grey mist", this is very curious, as when an untoned
albumen prints hits the fix it usually turns and unattractive yellow
brown. are you rinsing the exposed print in tap water before anything
else? The chlorine in the water combines with the excess silver making
silver chloride which turns the water milky. You continue to rinse until
the rnse water is clear, then continue on. Are you toning before or after
fixing? What toner are you using? Let me know how you solve this problem
Thanks.
John