Dodge This: Wet Printing and Alternative Processes

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The Dorkroom > Dodge This: Wet Printing and Alternative Processes

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

How do y'all flatten your prints? My "stuffed in a stack of books for a week" method is pretty unimpressive.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2015 22:44

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 10:37

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

nielsm posted:

Put them in a frame, keep flat with glass.

I think you vastly underestimate the crinklyness of my poo poo

# ¿ Mar 5, 2015 05:45

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

eggsovereasy posted:

Is that the natural tone of argyrotypes or did you tone it with something?

I've done some cyanotypes and experimented with toning:

Untoned:

Green tea (5 minutes):

Green tea (30 minutes):

Black tea (2 hours):

I've never had any luck bleaching them, so I just skip that step.

Yeah that green tea looks nice. I like the rich shadows you get with long toning times in tea but my highlights always come out stained too dark. Instant coffee seems to be an ok compromise with less highlight staining.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2015 23:00

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

Pham Nuwen posted:

Well my first (rushed) attempt at cyanotype was a laughable fuckup.

On Sunday, I had mixed up 10mL of emulsion and brushed it onto the thickest paper I had, which was just some sketching paper. I printed out a negative with my b&w laser printer. I only had color transparencies but it seemed ok so I said screw it. This morning I stuck it in a picture frame and left it on the porch for an hour. Washing revealed a very blue picture... you could make out the details, but it was all in shades of dark blue. I'd post pictures, but I dropped the paper while trying to hang it up and it tore, being lovely wet paper.

Luckily I've got enough formula left to do that 499 more times, so I've not really lost anything except some time.

I'm planning to stop at Wal-Mart or the art store tonight and pick up some watercolor paper, I figure that might help keep the paper from getting too soft/wrinkly when wet.

I'm wondering about exposure... was mine so dark this morning because I left it out too long? It was kind of hazy out there, so I figured it needed longer. Has anyone tried using a blacklight to expose cyanotype?

So many variables can affect exposure times. I've been recording exposure times and EV for ballpark figures then I plan to go back and look up the UV index charts for my exposure dates and times when I want more precision. My home laser (HP4000 series something or other) made such a thin neg that the exposure times I've been getting with my work printed negs were far too long. I've been using heavy sketching paper without any problems. Save your fuckups for experiments with toning and bleaching:

voodoorootbeer posted:

Had to print a new negative since the first version came out scratched and I wanted to see if my home printer is comparable to my work printer. It is not. Neg came out really thin with strangely high accutance. i vastly overestimated the exposure time and ended up with this:

Time to bust out the bleach I guess. 1/4 tsp sodium carbonate in 500 ml warm tap water. Agitate until just slightly washed out because the toner tends to over-darken:

Rinse thoroughly then agitate in 3 tbsp instant coffee in 500 ml tap water until color has shifted to taste:

This started out as an experiment to see if a complete fuckup could be rescued but I think I like the result. Sticking with the work printer for the time being for negs.

Oh yeah and there's this for artificial light exposure but I'm pretty happy with sunlight for now.

voodoorootbeer fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Mar 10, 2015

# ¿ Mar 10, 2015 20:37

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

Pham Nuwen posted:

I would too, but I can't remember anything more than "I think I saw someone doing prints on the wall". I'll try searching for it.

Edit: I've been playing with cyanotype lately so I'm trying to imagine how cyanotype might work on the wall. You brush it on, then leave the room in darkness while it dries. Then expose... you'll have an interesting time getting the image on there, maybe you could take a regular enlarger, lay it on its side and let the sun project the negative? Washing would also be hard unless you're in a warehouse/someplace with concrete floors and drains.

You could black out your entire window except for a single magnifying lens that projects the image but managing focal distance would be a real pisser -- my cardboard box cyanoneg camera has a ~2"x6" fresnel lens that requires a ~5"-6" focal length (depending on distance to subject). I think most of those "make your room a giant camera obscura" experiments use a tiny pinhole style aperture and everything I've seen seems to indicate that cyanotype is just plain not sensitive enough to handle pinhole exposures.

You never know though. Splatter some of that poo poo on a wall and see what happens.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2015 05:21

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

McMadCow posted:

Yeah, I did some quick math the other day trying to figure out the exposure of a sheet of cyanotype in my 8x10 camera and it was in the day+ range. That was wide open at f9. A room-sized pinhole camera obscura is going to have an aperture in the triple-digits. It could take months.

What are you using to do your calculations? Did you find something that lets you compensate for UV coatings?

Edit - this is why I use a simple magnifying lens instead of an actual old 50mm 1.8 or something.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2015 21:04

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

Primo Itch posted:

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.

Those double exposures are pretty dope.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2015 03:23

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

Primo Itch posted:

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.

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.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2015 01:33

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

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.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 03:20

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

Primo Itch posted:

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.

Now just overexpose your print a little then bleach it for the ultimate in shadow detail control.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 18:52

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

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

# ¿ Jul 26, 2015 04:35

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

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.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2015 03:00

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

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.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2015 06:09

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

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.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2015 03:04

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

Pham Nuwen posted:

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.

How do you feel about the general durability of the emulsion on a stretchy fabric?

# ¿ Sep 8, 2015 02:05

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 10:37

voodoorootbeer: Nov 8, 2004; We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we push up flowers.

Got an anthotype (pokeberry emulsion) cooking in my attic window. Based roughly on the current climate here it should be ready by Christmas.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2015 04:10

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The Dorkroom > Dodge This: Wet Printing and Alternative Processes