Spotting albumen

[juan]

I've gotten good enough with albumen prints now so that I can actually worry about spotting tiny areas.

What do folks use to spot albumen prints? I suppose a water color of some kind.
juan

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I do my best to avoid the need for spotting by dusting carefully, making multiple prints and rejecting the bad ones, but with the price of gold chloride, that's something I should reconsider, since I sometimes don't notice until the print has been toned and fixed. When I can't avoid it anymore, I'll try watercolors.

 

[RobertP]

That's a very good question. Reilly has nothing on it in his book which is surprising since it is considered the bible of albumen. But I did find something. Problems arise with water colors on albumen because the water colors won't adhere to the albumen. Try mixing your water colors with a little gum arabic to get them to adhere. You can always burnish it flat after it dries. (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

 

[fschifano]

I guess Marshall Spot All, the replacement for Spotone, would work ok. It comes in various shades and you can mix and match to make the color you need for your print. I can't think of anything that might work better


Dead Link Removed

 

[RobertP]

Frank, I don't know if Spotone would react well with the albumen. I know we don't use it on pt/pd prints. But it would be well worth a try to find out.

 

[RobertP]

Juan, After reading Dr. Schnauss' article again. He suggests to spot the area with the gum arabic first so the water colors will adhere. Then spot with the water color. Allow to dry then spot again with the gum arabic to bring back the sheen. I'm going to give this a try and see how it works out. I'll also try mixing the pigment with the gum. But what I get from his writings is that it may dry to flat and this is why he spots with the gum after the water color has dried.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Weston used to mix gum arabic with india ink for spotting, and he would adjust the quantity of gum arabic to match the gloss of the paper.

 

[RobertP]

Thanks David, That was my initial take. Which would be much easier, faster and probably would more accurately match the gloss of the paper.

 

[juan]

Thanks for the ideas - the gum sounds good - or maybe even mix with a few drops of albumen. I don't think Spotone or India ink would work for mine. I use ammonium chloride and my prints are very brown - not black. I'll try a few things and report back, too.
juan

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I didn't mean to suggest using India ink (Weston was spotting silver gelatin prints)--just that you could adjust the ratio of pigment to gum arabic up front to match the gloss of the paper, rather than applying additional gum afterward to bring up the gloss.