River Nord, Quebec, Canada

Re sharpness, two ideas. First, are you sharpening your image before printing your negative? I have found aggressive sharpening to pay dividends in the final print. Second, if resources permit, you might consider investing in a vacuum frame.

Thanks, I do a bit of sharpening and the neg looked very sharp. Believe this is a problem with my home brew contact frame. The springs are not strong enough, getting little pressure between the neg/paper and glass. Looking for better spring arrangement (as retired mechanical engineer, I should know better) will look into vac frame..thanks again for your suggestion. Really don't like the graininess in sky...probably the paper or my coating technique.

Another idea: The paper takes on a wave when moistened with sensitizer, that will prevent a clean sandwich with your negative in a contact print frame. A vacuum frame will pull the negative flat against the paper, and eliminate the paper wave, in a way a contact print frame cannot. You could wait around for the paper to dry completely before exposing but the common wisdom, FWIW, is that dmax is at its peak with a moist, freshly-coated paper. With my vacuum frame, it takes a minute before the force of the vacuum flattens the paper, but it works. I bought mine from another Photrio member:

Again, thanks for you comments - yes after some examination, the springs in my contact frame are too weak ( used old nielson frame springs modified). Plus the paper did have a curl - I will try the slightly damp paper approach, but mostly I have to redesign the springs on my frame to be more like the springs on the commercial frames they sell at B&S. Should not be a problem, I need to find metal flat stock with the right thickness and temper. I also found Mr Ramos' site, his frames look great, and not that expensive.... somehow I started doing some cyanotypes as a lark in my back yard, and I can see this how this has "incrementalized" into another minor obsession - oh well it's less expensive that a lot of my other pastimes ( such as my sailboat). Thanks again.

You can also put matte board between the frame back and the paper. I have a B&S printing frame and still put some board behind the paper for a tight sandwich. Try it as it might solve your problem.

jeffreyg said:

You can also put matte board between the frame back and the paper. I have a B&S printing frame and still put some board behind the paper for a tight sandwich. Try it as it might solve your problem.

Click to expand...

Thanks Jeff, actually I did try this - no - I need a redesign on the springs - came up with a way of mounting a very stiff "strong back" rod across the back, that will allow me to slide a wedge under the middle of the frame to make sure I have good contact..... if I ever get good at this alt photo stuff I will probably buy a vacuum frame as suggested, but for now I will make this work.