Cyanotypes. It's always something.

A photo posted by curtis corlew (@cccorlew) on Dec 11, 2015 at 3:04pm PST

We finally have our cyanotype coating figured out. We use a sponge brush, coat once lightly, let it dry a while, then coat again. It uses more chemistry but makes for darker blues and a smoother less dotted surface.

We have paper that seems to work. The Strathmore Mixed Media Paper has a nice weight and isn't breaking the bank.

We figured out the adjustment curves in Photoshop and printing digital negatives. If we aren't spot on, we are pretty close.

We've figured out that the time of day as well as the season change the amount of UV light to the degree we need to do a new exposure test every time we print if the time of day or date change much.

So what's wrong? We've been using an Epson 1270 to make our negatives. My new MacBook running El Capitan is incompatible with Epson 1270 printer drivers and won't work at all, so we need to get a new printer and start the calibration process all over again, or find an unused older Mac to connect to the 1270. But either way, what a pain.

Still, there is progress. Of a sort.

Comments

Yellow stain on cyanotypes. Problem solved!

At last, a problem with a solution. When we first started coating paper with our own cyanotype chemistry we were getting bad yellow stains. It turns out there are two ways to combat the ugly yellow. One is to add citric acid to to the first water bath when developing the print. The easier way is to add a bit to the sensitizer chemistry itself. We'd done that, but it turned out we hadn't been adding enough. So now, the yellow you see in the above print is a thing of the past. One problem solved, eight zillion to go.

Hello Cyanotype, meet Hydrogen Peroxide

You've exposed your cyanotype print and it just looks weird. You put it in a tray of water, and it looks better after a while, but still not all that wonderful. You dry it and wait three days for it to oxidize, or you could do something really fun: drop it into a tray of water with a little hydrogen peroxide. Be sure so say "Bam!"

The joy of test grids and new printers

We were so excited to have the Epson CX 7400 as a replacement for the Epson 1270. Excited until we went to use it for the second time and discovered that the black wouldn't print any longer. We ran head cleaner, we tried the Windex on the paper towel trick . It just wasn't going to work. Heroic Eric™ came through with a different printer. A wonderful Epson Stylus Pro 3800. We were thrilled to have yet another printer to calibrate. But this time, much to our amazement, it went well and seems to have worked. We have our best test grid results so far. Here's hoping that translates to actual prints soon.

The Cyanotype Conspiracy

Search This Blog