Lana Aquarelle

[Andrew O'Neill]

Anyone have any experience with Lana Aquarelle paper?

 

[Don12x20]

I have used it for Pt/Pd and Na2 Pd. Coats well. No acid precoat needed. About 50%-60% more exposure time than Platine, and most other papers. Beautiful results. If Platine ever was discontinued, I'd switch to L.A. or F.A.

 

[amuderick]

I have used it for Cyanotype and New Cyanotype. With the New Cyanotype it requires some citric acid added to the sensitizer. But, it works great and is stable over a day or two before exposure.

 

[sly]

I got both cold press and hot press with the gum bichromate kit from B&S. The hot press was great for gum, the cold press stank. Don't know why they included it. I haven't tried the cold press with anything else yet. The hot press is all used up.

 

[Colin Graham]

Hot press is great with carbon transfers, takes gelatin sizing nicely. Haven't had much success with kallitypes- results were really grainy.

 

[kberquist]

I cant' see that an oxalic acid soak adds anything at all. It coats nicely with the Richeson brush but I've had some grainy looking images with single coating using Pd/Na2. Double coating remedies this and makes for a visually satisfying Dmax.

 

[Don12x20]

I cant' see that an oxalic acid soak adds anything at all. It coats nicely with the Richeson brush but I've had some grainy looking images with single coating using Pd/Na2. Double coating remedies this and makes for a visually satisfying Dmax.

try a drop of tween
Works wonders for coating L.A. as well as Platine

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Hot press is great with carbon transfers, takes gelatin sizing nicely. Haven't had much success with kallitypes- results were really grainy.

I kallitype print. Colin, were you gelatin sizing for kallitypes too? I always found the sizing to get in the way.
Don, do you have experience with both hot and cold press papers?

Thanks for everyones' input!

 

[Colin Graham]

I've only sized Lana for carbon. I did try sizing with Arches HP once for kallitypes and was a pale mottled mess, so haven't tried it with any other papers. But I keep meaning to try some other prep for Lana because I like the paper so much. Maybe double coating, or using tween would help for kallitypes as well.

 

[PVia]

Don...do you use a drop of tween undiluted? and with how much sensitizer (in ml)?

 

[Don12x20]

Don...do you use a drop of tween undiluted? and with how much sensitizer (in ml)?

undiluted
2 drops for 7x17 or 12x20 (4ml and 6ml solution respectively)
and
1 drop for 8x10, with total drops #1 and #3 and NA2 at 18+18+NA2

You could dilute the tween, or pipette for less than one drop (I typically pipette) if you are using 4x5 or 5x7.

 

[alecmoody]

I tried this paper for the first time today and did tests on both sides. I got really salty blacks and lower than average sharpness. I used one heavy coat and I didn't use tween. Is this the expected result?

 

[sly]

What process were you testing? Kallitype? Cyano? (probably not - no blacks) Gum? Platinum? VDB? Carbon? .............

 

[alecmoody]

sorry, forgot to include that info.

I'm doing pt/pd with cold bath developer. I did a single coat for a 5x7 image using a puddle pusher. I used 7a 1b 6pd 3pt (this amount of coating was more than enough for the area). I dried the image with a hair dryer and then re-humidified for 90 seconds, flipping the paper every 30 seconds.

Another problem I noticed was that the coating was slightly sticking to the negative. There was a sound as I peeled them apart and a little residue left of the negative. This drying/humidifying procedure is identical to how I was working with the platinotype with no issues related to sticking.

 

[alecmoody]

Okay, I pulled a decent print today. Precoating in distilled water as bostick indicated didn't improve the image much but by soaking the paper for 30 seconds in oxalic acid and then drying the sheet until it was slightly damp I made an acceptable print. After that I humidified for 15 seconds on each side and I developed the print in potassium oxalate at 110 degrees.

It looks much better than before. the image is clear and no longer dominated by the white specs. However the image still shows a consistent scattering of small white specs after it hits the developer. Also, I am coating the side bostick and sullivan indicate and there is a distracting dimple pattern in the paper that is particularly visible in light grays. I will post a scan tomorrow when it is dry.

Anyone else worked with this paper to do pd/pt? It would appear that it is buffered since the acid bath improved the print so drastically?