as promised, here's some few scans
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double coated, negative from ordinary canon ink-jet print; the highlights aren't too stained (I had to apply a very little bath of sodium carbonate with a small brush, though); the blue tones are almost good to my taste, yet they could be improved (on the books I have the sensitized area outside the negative often it is extremely dark; on my prints they aren't). There's also a coffee-toned version of this negative (about 8-10 small cups of strong coffee, diluted in 1.5-2 liters of tap water, for 8 hours) Dead Link Removed
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this is one of my very first attempts - single coated, laser printer negative; the paper was an unknown watercolor paper... Even with 30-40 minutes of exposure, once dried the prints always "autobleached". I guess it was the paper (buffered?). After understanding this, I switched to a Fabriano cotton paper which didn't give this unfortunate result. But now I want to try something else. I'm not ready for top-quality dedicated paper. Which commercial paper do you suggest? Consider that I live in Italy; some papers avaiable in US maybe aren't avaiable here and viceversa.
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this isn't very bad; single coated, fabriano paper, samsung laser printer negative (very ugly); developed in water with lemon juice. The only problem, as I mentioned in the beginning of this thread, were the blue tones: too light. Maybe you can't judge by this digital image, but I assure you that it appears too flat. It was developed in water with concentrated lemon juice.
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this isn't bad too, but the highlights are stained. See those gray areas in the middle? It is the same problem with picture no. 5 (except tha this is overexposed and no.5 is underexposed). - Duble coated, fabriano paper, canon ink jet negative. I always do my exposures in direct sunlight, with the sunrays hitting the glass. This print was probably overexposed (20 minutes - I have made a contact frame that can be opened to watch the printing status, but I admit that I still can't tell when a cyanotype is ready or not). I guess I might get rid of the excessive blue with some sodium carbonate (this will cause the blue tones to lighten, though).
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this is very odd... I have at least three prints ruined like this. And also n. 4 and n.1 have a similar characteristic, although not so invasive. This print, however, was developed in winegar (I believe in 1:4 dilution). The print is underexposed, but I can't understand why - I made another print before this and I used the same exposure time, since I liked the first. Could it be the winegar? However, it didn't clear the print. Even after the bath I still could see some areas unclear, especially on the back. I could see the sensitizer on the back even when the paper was still unexposed. Before exposure it was yellow-greenish color; after exposure and during developing it was still greenish; I couldn't get rid of it during wash bath; when dried it turned light blue/gray. This could be the result of a double coating with too abundant (4ml per layer is abundant??) sensitizer and 1st coating layer combined with 2 drops of wetting agent. I might try with sizing all my papers, but I never sized a paper and must learn more about it. - Note: please don't consider the gray areas around the cyanotype "circle" - I didn't flatten the paper with the press, so the paper is all curled and what you see are just real-world shadows which the scanner captured.
If you need more informations about the making of these prints to comment on the tecnique, please tell me. I always used a standard cyanotype formula, diluted 1:1. I wash/develop my prints in trays, changing the water several times.