Help with fiber based paper & hand-tinted photography

Bene0Ph

Bene0Ph

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Hi everyone,

I hope I am posting this in the right place!

I am a first year student and I used the darkroom for the first time not long ago. I am working on a project on my own now and I am currently experimenting with fiber based, matte paper that I want to hand-tint.
I've already produced couple of images and they are ok, although I am not 100% happy cause they don't look really polished and the photographic paper looks pretty curly and wrinkly, even though I used a machine ( I am not sure about the name) which sort of dry and 'iron' the photo at the same time, but still they don't look really nice and ready.

Now, my tutor said that unfortunately there's no way a fiber based picture is going to be perfectly nice, polished and straight as digital prints. And that's ok, but I am quite sure that I could something else to make them look better. Any suggestions?

Also, I was looking at Hans-Peter Feldmann exhibition and more precisely at this serie: http://www.richardsaltoun.com/exhibitions/27/installation_shots/images153/. (They're also hand tinted images)
Now, I know that is a million dollar question but, how do you reckon he achieved that nice and polished look? I had to scan my images and reprint them digitally to make them look 'finished' but they sadly sort of lost that charm that fiber based paper has.

Cheers,

Benedetta
 
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Ops, apologise but English isn't my mother tongue (as you probably noticed) and it's easy to get confused.

Anyhow, yeah these Hans-Peter Feldmann are hand tinted indeed. I've already read a book about hand tinting and my tests /results aren't bad at all.
My question isn't about hand tinting though , I was asking tips and suggestions on how to reach a nice and polished look with FIBRE based paper and avoid that wrinkly look that the paper gets after it dries ;) .

Cheers
Benedetta
 
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Bene0Ph said:
Now, my tutor said that unfortunately there's no way a fiber based picture is going to be perfectly nice, polished and straight as digital prints. And that's ok, but I am quite sure that I could something else to make them look better. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Fibre based paper... correctly glazed will easily look better than a crap gloss inkjet print. I think your tutor has never seen such a print. Unglazed, no, it will never be fully gloss, or smooth. I think your tutor is just confusing an unglazed print from gloss fibre based paper with one that has been correctly finished.
 
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As a person that has processed fibre based prints and glazed them,I would take issue with your tutor. Handled correctly and hot glazed on a stainless steel drum, you can get a mirror like glaze. But like many things i processing it can be a bit of an art. One of the problems is "oyster shelling" . This is a problem where the glazed surface gives a cracked like appearance. An alternative to hot glazing was to air dry the prints. This gaze a good shine to the surface but resulted in a very curly print. The glazing machine had a cloth blanket that conveyed the prints around the drum, an alternative method of dryng the prints is to place them face down on the blanket. This tended to give them a duller look, unglazed glossy was the term used.

For those who remember them here's a picture of one available on ebay still Needs a new cloth though ( yes and available on ebay )

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Ah! That glazing machine is exactly what I used to dry them up, and I wasn't happy with the result because the pictures are very curly, indeed.

To Steve, the glass solution looks like the best diy/easy option to me! I'll see how it goes!

Thanks for the precious suggestions.
 
If you leave the prints to relax over night they should loose their curlyness. Another alternative is to place them under a flat sheet with a weight on top. Takes time though. RC coated paper was a blessing when it was introduced.Processing time and drying time reduced and no more cleaning the glazing drum :)
 
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