Re: gelatin

Judy,

What I hear you saying is that from your experience it is best not to
size for cyanotype at all.

And for gum, size with gelatin but only gelatin hardened with glyoxol
(or other hardener).

I haven't done the extensive experimenting you and others on this site
have so I appreciate the feed back. I'll still experiment but can
possibly draw some conclusions more quickly.

Thanks, Anne

On Oct 21, 2005, at 2:12 PM, Judy Seigel wrote:

>
> On Thu, 20 Oct 2005, Anne van Leeuwen & Peter Hoffman wrote:
>
>> I've read some talk here that gelatin is not necessarily good. I
>> wonder what that is about?
>
> What it's about is what the tests show. For instance, my tests showed
> that a gum print on paper that's been wet and dried -- just about any
> paper -- without an added size, doesn't print as well, for my printing
> methods. They also show that gelatin size without a hardener added
> doesn't print as well in gum, for my printing methods. Etc.
>
> I also found that of a dozen or more cyanotype size/no size tests I
> did, a gelatin size, hardened or not, always made an inferior print. A
> starch size *sometimes* made an equivalent print, but never better,
> and starch size is also a PIA.
>
> "Print as well" in these cases means things like D-max, smoothness,
> tone and/or scale, or other characteristics of the medium.
>
> But these are my conclusions for my papers and my print ideas, and may
> not hold for anyone else -- especially on handmade paper which may
> well be sui generis. However, my tests were with 21-step sensitivity
> guides which, whoever is testing and however they test, tell more than
> an "image" negative, which is, no matter how "beautiful" it may be or
> print, essentially random density.
>
> Judy S.
>
Received on Fri Oct 21 14:54:36 2005