Masters
Well it looks like it’s done.
Something like 65 prints including the small cards, they ranged from 3 x 4 inches (the cards) up to 30 x 40 inches (the panda & co) it seemed to go over well, now I just need to find a job.
Photographs courtesy of Shaun Waugh.
Hi secret squirrel
really like your work and your passion for the old processes
My name Is Riley Claxton and I am teaching a bit of photograpy,graphic design
Ive been trying to do some cyanotypes actually and have been finding the whole “digital Negative” a bit hard to guage
I have been inverting an image in Photoshop and printing it out in on mylar/acetate through a photocopier
results have been a bit hit and miss.
any suggestion please
I also have a blog rileyclaxtonphotographer.wordpress
but we bit neglected
check it out
Riley Claxton
February 27, 2012 at 11:30 pm
Hi Riley
I don’t use a laser printer as a rule, I generally use an inkjet printer with inkpress transparency, but I’ve seen a bunch of other people using it onto fabric or suchlike and they seem to get decent results.
The thing to keep in mind with cyanotype is that it’s an inherently high contrast medium, I usually make quite flat, low contrast negatives, and I also add citric acid and a surfactant as I mix the solution to coat the paper. The effect of this is that the citric acid lowers the contrast slightly and also has the effect of ‘toning’ the printed blue so that less of it washes away in the wash (though it can induce a base fog). The surfactant allows the solution to penetrate further into the paper and thus makes it less prone to washing out.
I usually use proportions like;
Soln. A
ferric ammonium citrate 25%
Soln. B
potassium ferricyanide 10%
Additions
citric acid 10% (ish, I just mix it by eye)
tween surfactant 20% (again, ish)
Then mix it like 1 part each of each A and B (equal amounts)
Then add the citric and tween 20 at a rate of 1 drop of each per each 2 Ml of the mixed solution.
Dishwash liquid could most probably be substituted for the tween (1ml dishwash liquid mixed with 10ml or so of water).
As far as the digital negative production, I use curves in photoshop to do the inversion and lower the contrast in one hit This does need to be tweaked some, I’ll do up a quickie post on it.
secretivesquirrel
February 28, 2012 at 12:08 am