Drying Prints - hanging?

[jvarsoke]

Looking at a few of the darkroom portraits, and reading a few posts I find many people "hang" their prints to dry. Several people have clothes-lines in their darkroom for this purpose.

What I can't figure out is, how are you people doing it? If I dry fiber prints by hanging them they get all curled and deformed due to curvature of the print as it dries.

Is this an RC thing? Do people actually get flat prints this way? Is there some part of the process that I'm missing?

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I use the line for film and sometimes for RC prints.

 

[josephaustin]

Ditto what david said, for fiber I use a shelf with cloth on it. I used the clothes line alot when I first started in my darkroom for RC prints, but hardly use it for that purpose at all now. Clothes Pins leave marks on the prints that are none to attractive.

 

[Kevin Caulfield]

RC prints dry flat and FB curl. You should peg FB prints together, back to back, at the corners, and down the sides too if they're really large. Then hang them from the line, over your darkroom sink, bathroom bath, shower, whatever...

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

For small RC prints, like those APUG Postcards that I'm behind on at the moment, I use a plastic coated wire letter file (a few of them actually) of the sort one can find at an office supply store.

 

[BWGirl]

There's a great piece in Black & White Photography Magazine (with a zebra on the cover) about this subject.

I have tried just about every method, and have found that my prints dry with very little curl if I dry them face down on some old placemats. I squeegee the back, then the front, then lay them face down on the placemats on my kitchen counter.

Now, I will say that I still have to put the dried prints inside Julia Childs' "The Way to Cook" and piling several other large cookbooks on top of that, but that drying method has worked best for me, and I've tried almost everything!

 

[David Brown]

I made drying screens out of regular plastic window screen and frame that you can buy at any Home Depot/Lowe's. You can make them any size.

Built a little rack for them under one counter, and they take up no space that would not be wasted otherwise. I have room for 28 8x10 or 14 11x14! The whole device is about 2 ft square and 10 inches thick.

 

[jvarsoke]

Oh, I use screens of fiberglass mesh (as for windows). Lay the prints face down. They dry okay. Not really flat-flat, but flat enough to mount. I usually store them between two museum boards with a heavy book on top after they dry, and before I mount them.

I could just never figure out how the clothesline came into play.

I dry film that way, mostly. But it also curls a bit, no matter the weight on the end. There's a processor in town that gets the negatives flatter than flat. Wish I could figure out how to do that at home.

 

[fschifano]

There's a processor in town that gets the negatives flatter than flat. Wish I could figure out how to do that at home.

Probably uses some sort of heat assisted dryer.

 

[Ole]

...Now, I will say that I still have to put the dried prints inside Julia Childs' "The Way to Cook" and piling several other large cookbooks on top of that, but that drying method has worked best for me, and I've tried almost everything!

My wife puts up with a lot from me, but I wouldn't dare use her cookbooks for flattening prints. Are they better than an encyclopedia?

I dry mine flat, image up, after wiping both sides. Then in the encyclopedia unless I'm in a hurry, in which case I moisten the back lightly and place them in my ferrotype drying press.

Or sometimes they just get stuffed in a cardboard (fiber paper) box, and left to uncurl over the next few years.

 

[joeyk49]

I'm a hanger...

My stuff isn't good enough...yet... to worry about perfect flatness. When hung from one corner they seem to dry just fine without much curl at all (RC).

 

[gandolfi]

There's a great piece in Black & White Photography Magazine (with a zebra on the cover) about this subject.

I have tried just about every method, and have found that my prints dry with very little curl if I dry them face down on some old placemats. I squeegee the back, then the front, then lay them face down on the placemats on my kitchen counter.

Now, I will say that I still have to put the dried prints inside Julia Childs' "The Way to Cook" and piling several other large cookbooks on top of that, but that drying method has worked best for me, and I've tried almost everything!

hanging RC.
hanging liquid emulsion, as they are east to flatten dry.

for FB, I use the oooold method of letting them dry on a glass plate.
put the wet image on a glass plate (heavy glass is best)
squeegee on the front and I use a special tape made intirely og paper. This is dry. when wetting one side of it, it becomes very sticky.
place the humid tape as a framing of the image - be carefull that there are no bubbles and such, and let it dry fo 12 hours or more - lying flat down.

Totall flatness! and the surface - especially when using glossy paper - is awesome!
you'll end up with an image with a border of the attached paper tape.
that's ok. It helps the image to keep flat, and you'll have a place to touch with your fingers.
(the surface will become extreamely fragile - fingerprints will show quickly..)

and you have a border where your matting wil be..

no sweat - it just requires patience and time..

 

[Gay Larson]

I made drying screens out of regular plastic window screen and frame that you can buy at any Home Depot/Lowe's. You can make them any size.

Built a little rack for them under one counter, and they take up no space that would not be wasted otherwise. I have room for 28 8x10 or 14 11x14! The whole device is about 2 ft square and 10 inches thick.

I did the same thing with some bread trays from bread delivery truck (I know a guy who got me some). I got some mesh screens and wrapped it around them, stapled it to the inside of the tray. I don't have a rack but I use as many as I need all over the darkroom and then stack them against the wall when not in use. If I squeegee the back of the fiber print really well and lay them upside down, the curling is minimal. works for me. I never ever hang fiber prints.

 

[BWGirl]

My wife puts up with a lot from me, but I wouldn't dare use her cookbooks for flattening prints. Are they better than an encyclopedia?

I dry mine flat, image up, after wiping both sides. Then in the encyclopedia unless I'm in a hurry, in which case I moisten the back lightly and place them in my ferrotype drying press.

Or sometimes they just get stuffed in a cardboard (fiber paper) box, and left to uncurl over the next few years.

Well, Encyclopedias are probably heavier, but that Julia Childs book is just the right size for my 8x10s.

 

[jp80874]

Yet another method.

I recently have moved up in FB print size from 11x14 to 16x20. Using great planning and foresight I discovered the other night with a full Calumet print washer that I didn’t have screens enough for 12 prints to dry. http://www.calumetphoto.com/item/GW4024.html?&ac.cat.CatTreeSearch.detail=y&type=SPDSEARCH

Necessity being the mother of invention, after filling all screens in the drier with squeegied prints, I took the smooth plexi glass dividers out of the print washer, rested them on the edge of the sink, draining into the sink. I put a print on each one, image side up in case there was any calcium left from the water. By morning those prints looked as good as the ones on screen. They both dry with a bit of curl or rumple. I then take them into class and use the college’s large Seal 510 dry mount press. This will do two images wide. At $3400 at B&H I have not added this item to my darkroom. I go into class twice a week, nine months of the year.

John Powers

 

[argus]

for FB, I use the oooold method of letting them dry on a glass plate.
put the wet image on a glass plate (heavy glass is best)
squeegee on the front and I use a special tape made intirely og paper. This is dry. when wetting one side of it, it becomes very sticky.
place the humid tape as a framing of the image - be carefull that there are no bubbles and such, and let it dry fo 12 hours or more - lying flat down.

Totall flatness! and the surface - especially when using glossy paper - is awesome!
you'll end up with an image with a border of the attached paper tape.
that's ok. It helps the image to keep flat, and you'll have a place to touch with your fingers.
(the surface will become extreamely fragile - fingerprints will show quickly..)

and you have a border where your matting wil be..

no sweat - it just requires patience and time..

Gandolfi,

I must second that! The gloss and flatness of fiber prints dried on glass plates is marvellous!!!

G

 

[Flotsam]

I hang my FB from clothes lines. They come out somewhat curly. When dry, I put them in a hot dry mount press for a minute or so and they are very flat.

 

[reellis67]

I'm with Neal on this one. Once my FB is dry, I pop it in the Seal press for a minute and they come out nice and flat.

- Randy

 

[fred]

Here, I put the FB prints a night on a fly-wire, with the "face" direction the fly-wire.
Then in a Bienfang 250x press for maximum flatness.

The advantage is that the prints keep their exact measurements.
The disadvantage for drying on glass is that the prints become several mm larger.

Regards
Frederik Argentik