You are making your life complicated. At the learning stage you should take
the easiest route. One you are comfortable with the process then you can
experiment. I suggest you use 4"x5" continuous tone negatives (enlarged or
not).
, and am closing in on the
>pigment problem. So far, my images are full-scale, but a bit low in
>contrast.
>
>> The more troubling thing for me is the baryta transfer paper. Images on
>> raw paper (even good hot-pressed) just don't do much for me. An old (19th
>> C) book I hope I can locate again gave a recipe for precipitating barium
>> sulfate in a gelatin solution (saying that dispersing powdered barium
>> sulfate in solution is difficult and gives poor results because the
>> particle size is too large), so I suppose I could try that. Someone
The industry usually brushes baryta coatings on paper, up to 4 times for
glossy papers.
>> recently suggested that one of the liquid emulsion makers supplies baryta
>> in gelatin suspension for underlayers; if so, that might be useful. Do you
>> know of any other possibilities? Have you tried any other "shiny" papers
>> -- clay-coat, etc? I know I can get silver paper and fix it out, but (1)
>> even with outdated paper this is a bit expensive,
With single transfer you can use the same support repeatedly, until you
like the results. Just wipe out the image with a sponge saturated with hot
water. Don't try to do this with platinum printing;-)
and (2) one of the nice
>> things about carbon is that neither silver nor thiosulfate ever comes near
>> it.
Not necessarily. Thiosulfate has been used in the paper manufacturing
industry (as an antichlor) since the 1840s. I used to see it utilized in
paper conservation labs...
>I've been using fixed out photographic paper simply because it is easy and
>is what I have on hand. My very first experiment was actually done with a
>piece of poster board sized with some spray starch. One of the nice
>things about Carbon transfer is that you can put the image on pretty much
>any surface you can get the gelatin to stick to. Some of the surfaces
>I've been thinking about trying are: glass, aluminum, white enameled
>masonite, and floor tile. For now, I think I'll keep refining the
>technique for paper.
>
>As far as the suspension of barium sulfate you mention, I personally don't
>know anything about it. You might check a good art store. They could
>probably suggest some white paints or lacquers that could be used as a
>base coat, and possibly do double duty as a sizing agent. I thought I'd
You'd compromise the permanence of your results.
Luis Nadeau
Fredericton, NB, Canada