Spotone?

[nsurit]

As a dinasaur who has recently been resurrected, I went looking for some Spotone only to discover it is no longer made. I realize a three bottle kit for me is a little like large jar of peanut butter . . . a lifetime supply. Unfortunately in the moves I've made ove the past 35 or 40 years the Spotone has been lost or packed away only to be discovered by me on a future move or perhaps by my heirs, who will toss it.

So, what is the Spotone solution these days? Thanks in advance. Bill Barber

 

[Lee L]

see: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

 

[Curt]

It's a myth that it lasts forever as I had a bottle stored in my art box, upright, and in a good environment and it evaporated and dried up. I opened it up and it was gone. The bottle was nearly full and I thought it would last a life time. I had to scrounge a bottle and finally found one. I have my eye on it and hope it will last long enough. The person who made it decided to stop and the formula is theirs alone. Weston was said to use India ink.

 

[Robert Oliver]

Marshall's Spot-All Neutral Black available at Calumet...

 

[ann]

the person who made spotone died. It can be found on ebay from time to time.

I have had several bottles for at least 30 years and it is still going strong.

You might find some veronica cass dyes on ebay (she retired), it is good stuff as well.

We have some marshalls dyes at the lab, but have never tested them out.

 

[juan]

Orben's Camera in Jacksonville, Florida had at least a dozen bottles of blue-black the last time I was there. You might call and see if they will ship them.
juan

 

[PHOTOTONE]

Dried out Spotone is not a problem, as if there is pigment in the bottle, you can add a bit of distilled water to the bottle. The way I used to use Spotone was to put a drop each of the different tints on a white china saucer, and let them dry out, then I would wet my spotting brush with a tiny bit of water and touch the dried pigment, to moisten it, and then mix to the tone I wanted, then spot away. I never used Spotone direct from the bottle. A complete lack of Spotone would be serious, but dried out pigment in the Spotone bottle is but a minor inconvenience.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Try SpotPens. They make them in ten-pen sets- one neutral and one warmtone. They're the easiest things in the world to use. Each pen is tone-matched to a zone, so just pick the one you think matches, and dot away. If it's too light, it will look like you did nothing. If it's too dark, it will be obvious. If you don't like the one you tried, while it is still wet, you can just blot it off and poof! - it's gone.

 

[don sigl]

The spotone interest was purchased by Marshalls. They have basically the same stuff. I'm using it now and i can't see any difference from the original spotone product. http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_prod.php?cat_id=&pid=6062 However the "selenium" tone is some weird green and pretty useless.