No vinegar will produce a slightly lighter blue.ĭrop the print into the developer face up and agitate. A little vinegar is good, too much will turn the paper into a slightly graded paper and affect your contrast. I use a 1:10 ratio of vinegar to water for my developer because of the pH of my tap water. It should look overexposed, because part of the emulsion washes off. A single coated paper will turn the light brown that you see on the edges of this print, while a double coat will go a darker green. I’ve heard this increases the contrast, but since my digital negative adjust for that I have no idea how much this affects my prints.Ī properly exposed print will reverse: the highlights and midtones will turn a green/blue, while the shadows look slightly solarized. I try to angle my printing frames to match the sun so that the exposure is even. My printing frames are simple glass held together with bulldog clips – make sure you don’t use UV resistant glass. An expensive hinged contact printing frame is nice, but not necessary for cyanotype. The negative needs to be held flat and still on the paper. Cloudy weather is a little more unpredictable and will take a minimum of double your sunny exposure time.Īlways load your negative under low light – once the paper is sensitive you risk fogging the paper: lightly exposing the paper so that you lose contrast and highlights. It’s best to print in full sun, but any sort of UV exposure will work. I know the basic print time for my images – my digital process is streamlined enough that (if prepared correctly) all my prints should need the exact same print time if the conditions are the same. I always test the print time with a simple test strip before I start printing. Drying with a blow dryer and subsequently printing should be avoided. The emulsion needs to age for a little bit, but not over a day or so. After the paper is bone dry (don’t touch the emulsion!) put it in a light safe bag overnight. Let the paper dry flat for at least 1 hour, preferably 2 in a dark room. Be very careful not to grind the brush into the first coat. After the paper goes matte (a minute or so) repeat the process for the second coat. It’s a good idea to shake off excess emulsion or drag the brush over the edge of your container to keep from putting too much emulsion on: it doesn’t take much. My coating method is: strokes across the entire sheet, then down the entire sheet. Coat under a low light situation: I use a strand of small garden lights – Christopher James says a strand of Christmas tree lights. It’s a good idea to tint some water a light green color with watercolor and practice your strokes. I double coat my paper with a Japanese hake (brush.) The key to this process is to do it swiftly, carefully, and don’t glop emulsion. I don’t have pics of this, mainly because it was dark while I was doing it. A large part of the fun of working with alternative processes is what happens when you experiment. This is how I do things – they work for me, but your variables may differ. I’ll go through the entire process from coating to drying, with some troubleshooting tips at the very bottom. I’ve been meaning to do a little tutorial of my process for a while and finally got the camera out yesterday while printing. Since that involves a video camera and me actually talking (horrors!) I settled for some illustrating pics instead. Technically this should be a handy little video.
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