paper negatives and cyanotype questions

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From: Christina Z. Anderson (zphoto@montana.net)
Date: 02/12/03-11:11:36 PM Z


Martin, Sam and list,
    Now I am really confounded. I mixed up the traditional cyanotype. I
put 2 pts A to 1 pt B. I mixed and used immediately--didn't age (Sam, is
this OK???). I coated all kinds of papers.
     First, I tested it against Ware's and found it to be about 1 stop
slower, so I doubled my printing times from Ware's (Sam, is this what you
have found to be true?). Then, taking that into account, I took a peeled
and an unpeeled RC paper neg and exposed outside. Sunny 16 kind of day,
nice and bright. I did an hour exposure between the hours of 10 and 2 and
got a perfectly fine print. Hence, I don't think there are UV blockers that
are affecting my exposure. Sure it was a long exposure, but not that long.
My Ware's cyanos from negs were running about 20 minutes under UV and I
doubled that for the traditional. I didn't find a huge difference in
exposure time between peeled and unpeeled, and I really need to test this
more thoroughly.
     My paper I am using is Forte. Maybe Forte doesn't have UV blockers. I
called Kodak, because they never returned my call (the guy was "sick") and
he is calling me back tomorrow, after talking with the engineer dept to see
if there are UV blockers in the paper. However, he says he exposed paper
negs to VDB and never had a problem. My guess is that paper negatives work
just fine and the UV blocker is either not there or doesn't affect exposure.
I'll continue to work with this, but it may be that the UV thing is plain
wrong?
     But Martin, my paper negs were exposing in around an hour, not 4 or 5
days. BUT, when I did another paper neg with a really contrasty scene, from
3-5 PM when the sun was waning, it was seriously underexposed in the print,
not in the borders. So I think that full on sun between 10 and 2 with an
unpeeled RC paper neg that looks not terribly contrasty will give you about
an hour's exposure with traditional cyano mixed 2:1. Maybe a too contrasty
neg will hardly work. Now, how I got the neg in the first place was from a
print that I exposed with the enlarger wide open, 30cm up, contacting this
one stop darkish and one grade dullish print for 7 seconds with another
piece of RC paper. Then, with this paper neg, what was even weirder, is
that I took my paper neg and coated half with beeswax. The coated half on
the finished cyano was a bit lighter! The beeswax is obviously adding
density instead of subtracting density. Oil must be the better choice.
     What was a pleasant surprise is that the print on cyano with a paper
neg was perfect--it looked like a normal print from a film neg! I was blown
away by that. If you want, Martin, I can jpeg the print and email it to you
off list.
     More questions: the traditional formula did not absorb as readily as
Ware's. I know that some use Tween. Maybe I'll try that. Second, the
traditional formula went grainy, and i mean GRAINY, on the Japanese Torinoko
paper, and I had never experienced that before. What's that all about??
     I also find the traditional formula is a softer, less navy blue even in
the overexposed parts (I'm not double coating, tho), that it goes pale olive
brown instead of silvery blue in the shadows when you are exposing it, and
that it bleeds out of the paper way more and longer, on the
papers I tried: Uno, Torinoko, Crane's Platino, Artistico, gampi, Aquarius,
etc.
     I would really love it if anyone on the list would share their paper
negative experiences with alt printing--what brand paper, RC or fiber,
waxed, oiled, or unwaxed, and length of exposure whether in full sun or UV
box, and with what process. And, I am in the process of testing my
imagesetter negs. They look promising, but contrasty like the Maco genius
film and yet less dense blacks.
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Reis" <mreis@tafelmusik.org>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 10:45 AM
Subject: RE: Cyano test print from paper RC neg

> Christina,
>
> Thank you for your kind reply.
> I live in Toronto, Canada. latitude 44 north. 20 meters above sea level.
> Still underexposed? Yup. ;-) Ware's formula. Nope. Traditional formula.
> Although I do mix closer to Sam Wang's recipe.
>
> The printing I am doing here is through a window, in the shade,
> cloudy conditions, likely too much chem is washing off although
> I am careful not to agitate too much. The solution could also be a
> bit weak and certainly I am not double coating or brushing a huge
> amount of chemicals. Just doing basic test prints right now.
>
> However, I think the extra long exposure is due to due amount of paper
> peeled off in the is case being too thick. I notcied that on the lower
> right side it was much thinner and than of course helps greatly.
> I think I will have to more careful with the next photo and do a better
> peeling job by wetting the photo first.
>
> Oh, well, at least I am getting an image that is pleasing to the eye.
> And I do think it will get better.
> Again, thank you and let me know how your paper negs worked out.
>
> Cheers
> martino
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christina Z. Anderson [mailto:zphoto@montana.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 11:09
> To: Alt Photo List
> Subject: RE: Cyano test print from paper RC neg
>
>
> Finally, I've found out the source for the UV inhibitors in paper negs!!
> Erich Camerling wrote me off list, the following answer, and saved me a
> bunch of time looking up paper negs in books. So now, back to Martino's 5
> day exposure, below. First of all, Martino, where do you live--like at
what
> latitude? 5 days seems an awful long time, and your image looks like it
> still is underexposed. Or else the paper is unsuitable and you have
> bleeding out of the cyanotype, or you washed it too long. And, if
Katherine
> is having exposures with paper negs that are not too much different than
her
> regular negs, with gum printing anyway, I'm wondering what is going on.
> Hey, I've got an old paper neg, I'll print today or tomorrow and see if my
> times are that outrageous. I'm pretty far north, too, in Montana, but I
am
> at UV rich 5000 feet. I've just used up all my Ware's solution and have
to
> mix the traditional cyanotype stuff up first, which I was going to do
> anyway. Are you using traditional or Ware's cyanotype? The traditional
is
> slower, unless you mix it 2 parts A to 1 B as Sam Wang does, and he says
his
> times approach the Ware formula.
> Shannon (sorry to condense two posts into one here) the "conversion"
> thing that I was talking about was a curves and channels thing that you do
> to an image to make it into a suitable negative for cyanotype printing.
Sam
> prints the red channel only for cyanotype, but he applies this curve to it
> first.
> Chris
> <from Erich Camerling about paper negatives on RC>
> "Baryta coated (fibre-based) papers (like Ilford Multigrade FB etc.)have
an
> anti-stress layer an emulsion layer and a Baryta (Barium sulphate mixed
> with an adhesive) coating on a paper base RC (polyethylene-coated) papers
> have an anti-stress layer an emulsion layer a pigmented polyethylene layer
a
> paper base a clear polyethylene layer and a back-writing layer. You
cannot
> peel off the paper base from the baryta-coated papers.
> But with RC-paper you can peel off the very thin anti-stress + emulsion +
> pigmented polyethylene layer. (When you scour the back-side of the dry
> paper-negative carefully with abrasive paper (~no.400) you can remove all
> the paper remnants and have a good neg for visible-light-sensitive
> processes. But for UV-light-sensitive processes (based on
UV-light-sensitive
> iron salts) like Platinotype.Cyanotype and VBD(or kallitype or argyrotype)
> you cannot use a paper-negative in practice because of the UV-blockers in
> the layers. I never used paper-negs in the enlarger,only in
> contact-printing. An enlarger doesn't give UV-light,so even hours of
> exposure will not give any result for UV-based processes." Erich
> <from Martin Reis>
> > Here is a test sample of a cyano made from an RC paper neg. Originally a
> > Kodachrome slide printed onto RC B&W paper, peeled and oiled. Printed
onto
> > sized 100% cotton rag paper. Exposure time was 5 days.
> > http://www.web.net/~lukmar/images/blue1.jpg
> > Still working on this one, obviously, and I am posting this just for
> general
> > interest.
> >
> > Martino


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