Well, here is my first cyanotype, which I made using a copy neg on APHS. I wish it were a deeper blue, but I'm happy for my first attempt. Next time I'll try tea toning. I assume a longer exosure might deepen the blue, correct? Thanks for any thoughts.
Hydrogen peroxide just speeds up the natural oxidation of the cyanotype... and ammonia can bleach it away quickly so I wouldn't recommend that.
Have you tried double coating the paper? That's what gets intense blues in traditional cyanotype. I coat a bunch of paper, leave it to dry for a few minutes. It doesn't need to be totally dry before coating again, just not shiny.
Also some papers are better than others for producing good blues. To me from the scan it looks like either of those two things might help. It looks a bit like the weedy blue I get on cheap bogstandard inkjet paper. BFK Rives is lovely although a bit pricey and you will need to cut it down to size.
Thanks. @Akki14--It's Canson Montval paper. I don't think it looks "weedy" at all. I just expected a slightly deeper blue. I did one other print that day and though I don't like the photo as much, it is deeper blue. In that case, the sun came out and really sped the process. This one took about 20 minutes as it was nearly evening and cloudy.
Ah yeah clouds will underexpose it quite a bit. Sometimes I am too used to using my facial tanning bed thing for exposures. It does help quite a bit. Sometimes too much or too rough of washing will make the blue on top wash away more and leave it looking less blue. Was this one double coated or just single coated? Double coating really does make a difference.
This was single coated, but I think the clouds really played a part. I also think I washed a little too much. After this, a storm came through and all daylight disappeared. I knew it was a bad time for a UV process, but I really wanted to give it a try.