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If your glossing-dryer can keep the fabric stretched tightly, you can try using it cold. That has worked for me. I think the heating element is only supposed to be used for making prints fully glossy, and also requires some special liquid or wax or something.
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Mar 30, 2015 07:46
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I made a significant upgrade to my setup last week. I found a Beseler 23C II with a dichro 23dga head on it, so now I can use it for color prints if I ever want to do that in the future. It also came with a 6x9 negative carrier, so I got to see what medium format prints look like. Holy poo poo, the detail. I enlarged some Ilford Pan F+ 50 film up to 8x10 and there's zero grain, and the edges look sharper than any digital print I've seen. I want to try 11x14, but I don't have trays large enough.
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Apr 5, 2015 06:50
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I want to start this off with a gently caress you, thread DSC09764 by Hernando Rosa, on Flickr I think I love cyanotypes. This was all done over the course of this weekend. Some thoughts: It's ridiculously easy. Those were my first alternative process experiments ever, and with minimal process control you can get consistent and good looking results. It's cheap, oh my. Like, cheaper than digital printing for the same size, all things considered, roughly - i think - (especially if you're working in larger batches). It's very beautiful. I've just started experimenting with toning, let's see how it goes. I'm planning on using several different plants after I get the hang on toning. There isnt much info besides black and green tea and coffee and tannic acid, but the thing is, anything with tannins should work. There's just so many plants very rich in tannins that some interesting results should arise. I think I just found my new favorite photography thing.
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Apr 5, 2015 19:36
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Primo Itch posted:I want to start this off with a gently caress you, thread I want to start off with a gently caress you, those look amazing compared to the contrast-less poo poo I've been getting. What sort of printer did you use to make the negatives? I think my b&w laser might not be cutting it, but I loving hate inkjets so much... Did you do test strips? How long did you end up exposing those?
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Apr 6, 2015 17:51
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Standard solution, Injket printer with some very cheap transparencies. Contrasty negatives thought, photoshop helps. No test strips, just going by eye/feel. They're all double coated, which I heard helps with density. Canson Montval paper. Exposure time varies from 30 minutes to an hour depending on the hour of the day, sunny cloudless days, in the yard but not under direct sunlight (I don't get any on it). It's also the end of summer around here (south hemisphere, roughly around the Tropic of Capricorn). I guess I could do a write-up on the process, but really I'm just following what I found on the internet from alternativephotography and https://mpaulphotography.wordpress.com/ Here's (a bad picture of) one toned in green tea. Honestly for all the fuzz I've heard, toning was easy enough. I even used common household bleach for bleaching and it worked allright.  DSC09765 by Hernando Rosa, on Flickr Primo Itch fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Apr 6, 2015 |
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Apr 6, 2015 23:23
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Primo Itch posted:I want to start this off with a gently caress you, thread Those double exposures are pretty dope.
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Apr 7, 2015 03:23
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Hey cool thread. I picked up Ellie Young's Salt Print Manual a few months ago and *hope* to be able to start making some real prints with my
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Apr 8, 2015 07:00
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Primo Itch posted:
What kind of dilution do you use for bleaching? We're having an open house in our darkroom tomorrow and are doing some cyanotypes. It could be fun to try out some toning as well.
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Apr 10, 2015 19:47
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One capful of household bleach per liter of water. It's quite mellow so bleaching can take up to 5 minutes or so. I'd rather have it like this then super fast like some recipes on the internet, more controlable. I also had sucess with a very quick (30s) bleach after tonings, seens to reduce paper staining a lot - but you lose a little bit of density. I'll edit this post with some more toned images later. One interesting thing is that black tea takes quite some time (2-3hours) but will give you nice blacks and a very stained paper, while green tea takes quite less time (30 minutes maybe?) and gives a slight purple-ish tone and less paper staining. If you're doing a "cyanotype day" thing I'd recommend green tea since it's quite fast and you don't want two prints on the same toning bath. Black tea will limit your output. edit: I can't believe I've gone from "never done this" to be giving tips on a week's time. Primo Itch fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Apr 10, 2015 |
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Apr 10, 2015 23:17
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Primo Itch posted:
Also: coffee gives you dark blue green blacks with even less stain than green tea with the time frame of black tea. Both instant coffee and spent coffee grounds seem to give the same shadow tones, but grounds seem to stain less than instant.
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Apr 11, 2015 01:33
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voodoorootbeer posted:Also: coffee gives you dark blue green blacks with even less stain than green tea with the time frame of black tea. Both instant coffee and spent coffee grounds seem to give the same shadow tones, but grounds seem to stain less than instant. How do you prepare the coffee toning bath? Any particular tips? I'm probably go with ground if it stains less...
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Apr 18, 2015 19:29
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Primo Itch posted:How do you prepare the coffee toning bath? Any particular tips? I'm probably go with ground if it stains less... For the grounds, I save up 2-3 days worth of spent grounds (8-12 tbsp pre-brewing?) then add 500ml boiling water and let it steep all day. Filter out the solids with a French press.
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Apr 20, 2015 03:20
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I think I'm in love with coffee toning. Lisboa - Igreja by Hernando Rosa, on Flickr This scan doesn't show the amount of detail at all. It's quite nice. Left some prints stading overnight today (they're still drying) and they're BLACK with minimal staining.
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Apr 25, 2015 13:01
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Primo Itch posted:I think I'm in love with coffee toning. Now just overexpose your print a little then bleach it for the ultimate in shadow detail control.
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Apr 25, 2015 18:52
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Some colleagues at the CSIRO let me know they were cleaning out their darkrooms to put new electron microscopy gear in. So their Durst 1200 enlarger got snapped up quick along with their film stocks, BUT I was able to go in and get all their paper and a bunch of other odds and ends.  I got around 2700 sheets of paper in a range of grades and multigrade, mostly 8x10, 200 sheets of X-ray film, a bunch of trays, a big patterson tank and a couple of stainless steel ones, 5 paper safes, 9 bottles of Rodinal Special, and a couple of enlarger timers that I'd been meaning to get.
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Apr 29, 2015 12:45
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Some Argyrotypes made from 8x10 X-ray film negatives:  
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Jul 19, 2015 08:09
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Those are rad. I just did some toned cyanotypes from a model shoot with an 8x10 on X-Ray film as well. X-Ray film seems like a pretty amazing loophole around $10+/sheet conventional film.
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Jul 19, 2015 22:47
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Thanks! I'm pretty impressed with X-ray film, I've got the processing worked out so I don't scratch it and get get it quite even, and also done cheaply with Rodinal 1:100 for 6min. The only problem being that its tough to get on places like e-bay here in Australia. I think I might try Cyanotypes next, they seem to have a lot more flexibility in the processing and lots of options for toning/bleaching etc. And give the collodion based print-out-paper a go too, now that Freestyle have sent my the Adox Baryta paper I ordered.
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Jul 20, 2015 00:38
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Possibly cheaper than x-ray film, has anyone tried making blueprint paper photos? You use the paper in place of film and it produces a positive image when developed in ammonia.
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Jul 24, 2015 17:48
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Having a quick search, it's ASA is around 0.0001, while x-ray film can vary between 50-400 depending on the manufacturer and type. And to be honest, I don't think I have the time to use film that slow. I got a packet of that Arista Ortho Lith film, $40 for 50 sheets. I've shot a couple but haven't developed them yet, annoyingly the sheets are a smidge too big for standard 8x10 holders and need to be cut down a little. I might try it in the 100 year whole plate camera I've got.
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Jul 25, 2015 00:07
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I'm going to reprint both of these so that the size and toning match up, so given that: am I justified in thinking this makes an effective diptych (for display side by side)? Diptych by Alex, on Flickr
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Jul 26, 2015 04:35
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I don't see it.
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Jul 29, 2015 04:51
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Me neither. It might work if the diagonals in the pictures were opposite instead of similar. If you flipped one of the images like this: 
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Jul 29, 2015 17:13
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 This is the most successful image from my darkroom session last night.
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Jul 30, 2015 22:05
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McMadCow posted:
It's good More details?
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Jul 30, 2015 22:41
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Just aimed my camera phone at the grain focuser. I love the three-dimensionality of negatives and that hand was particularly expressive.
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Jul 30, 2015 22:45
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McMadCow posted:Just aimed my camera phone at the grain focuser. I love the three-dimensionality of negatives and that hand was particularly expressive. Now just put your phone on one of those things that makes a contact print of your screen...
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Jul 30, 2015 22:48
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Wet printing is such a time sink. I had three free hours tonight and I wanted to make a bunch of prints, but I only got two done. And they're not even what I would consider good enough. Split grading takes so much time.
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Aug 9, 2015 06:55
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 Proof of concept: forest mushroom cyanotype from medium format negative on... log by Alex, on Flickr This is gonna be so cool when I get all the kinks ironed out. Might display them with a little magnifying lens on a chain.
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Sep 2, 2015 03:00
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Could you persevere them in amber/acrylic? I think that would be pretty neat.
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Sep 2, 2015 05:02
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Possibly, although I'd be tempted to just smear it with some kind of polyurethane and just call it a day. My brother has done some resin stuff so I might talk to him once I have the end result where I want it. Lessons learned: Sanding the cross section to "pretty goddamn smooth" is not enough -- needs to be exceptionally smooth. Pressing a negative completely flat to anything that isn't pliable is tricky. I need to sell enough of these to buy a LF camera so that I can print on bigger logs.
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Sep 2, 2015 06:09
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voodoorootbeer posted:Sanding the cross section to "pretty goddamn smooth" is not enough -- needs to be exceptionally smooth. 1 - Get some ceramic tiles from Home Depot or a decent-size slab of scrap granite countertop (heavy is good, heavy is your friend). Use spray adhesive on progressively finer grades of sandpaper to attach sheets to the tile, then use that to smooth out your chunk of wood. This will naturally flatten it as you go. Micro Mesh comes in sheets up to 12,000 grit if you need it, though I suspect you won't. 2 - See above. Pliable matters less when it's really flat and you can just stick a heavy piece of glass on top. 3 - This is interesting and I might be willing to get you started here.
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Sep 4, 2015 07:23
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I've been using a mouse sander but I'm certainly willing to try a heavy sanding block if that's a better method. I have a few more chunks from this particular pine log left to play with and my dad has some hickory logs of various (paper towel tube through oatmeal canister) sizes that I plan on chopping up to use initially. I get the feeling that each wood and possibly each individual tree will have its own ring / grain structure that needs to be taken into account when it comes to composition which makes this whole project even cooler. I did another print last night that gave me some more ideas w/r/t negative selection so I'll post some more once I have logs that I feel comfortable exchanging for currency.
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Sep 5, 2015 03:04
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voodoorootbeer posted:I've been using a mouse sander but I'm certainly willing to try a heavy sanding block if that's a better method. The mouse sander is going to be a lot faster for getting "close", but as you approach "finished", the you want to eliminate as much movement as possible. A big heavy sanding block (with a working surface meaningfully larger than the cross-section of your log) is going to make your wood slice approach the flatness of the block. A mouse/belt/etc is going to have its own tolerances for "flat motion", your slice is going to move when the machine applies force, etc.
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Sep 5, 2015 03:24
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Made some plain old-fashioned cyanotype prints today and I'm quite pleased with how they came out. First I printed out 3 transparencies but forgot that they need to be inverted, so I printed out and trimmed another set. Here's the two best so far:  It's funny, my phone's camera removes a lot of the blueness (I think it has to do with the color of the bathroom light) so they look like they've been toned... they're quite blue in person.
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Sep 6, 2015 23:50
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For the hell of it, I spread some cyanotype formula on a white t-shirt and gave it a shot: Came out pretty OK, but I didn't realize until afterward that I'd placed the negative on the shirt at an angle. Oh well, I'll still probably wear it.
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Sep 7, 2015 22:29
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Pham Nuwen posted:For the hell of it, I spread some cyanotype formula on a white t-shirt and gave it a shot: How do you feel about the general durability of the emulsion on a stretchy fabric?
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Sep 8, 2015 02:05
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voodoorootbeer posted:How do you feel about the general durability of the emulsion on a stretchy fabric? No loving clue, this was just something to do with my excess formula. I'm going to wear it, wash it, and pray it doesn't dye all my other clothes blue in the wash.
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Sep 8, 2015 02:15
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Pham Nuwen posted:For the hell of it, I spread some cyanotype formula on a white t-shirt and gave it a shot: Thats sick
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Sep 8, 2015 03:15
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In an effort to keep this thread from falling into archives... I have a couple rolls I shot this summer that I kinda screwed up developing, and I am not sure if the camera's meter was off also, but the negatives came out either over exposed or over developed, or both. Not sure. Something weird happens when I try split grading. If do the shadows first with a 00 filter and it actually seems to develop most if not all of the entire image including midtones but leaves the highlights pure white (as expected). My exposures for the shadows are usually in the range of 15-20 seconds. Then if I expose it for as little as 1 or 2 seconds with a 5 filter for the highlights, it seems to affect the whole image, even darkening the shadows and midtones further. I found it's easier to do the inverse and start with the 5 filter so I get the highlights how I want them, then just a short blast of the 00 filter fills in the shadows nicely. I am probably doing something wrong, but my properly exposed and developed negatives aren't this finicky. Should I experiment with different grades than 00 and 5? I also tried making BW prints from color negatives, and they came out pretty good. Super long exposure times required, though. Here is A Barn:   I also got 11x17 trays and my enlarger is *just* tall enough to project that large. So now I only need to take photos nice enough to justify the waste of paper.
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Oct 23, 2015 23:21
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