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12/10/2003 Entry: "old and new"

It doesn't seem right, somehow, to blend digitally produced images with a 19th century printing technique like cyanotype. The results, even initial experiments which need some tweaking, are good enough to keep me trying. It's a far cry from *real film* but challenging in its own way, just hard enough to make it interesting.

Photogeek babble follows:

This was my first shot at following Sam Wang's Tri-Color Gum with Cyanotype method. Not entirely happy with the lack of detail in the highlights or the compressed range in the shadows, but some play with the curves should straighten it out.

The digital negative was made by inverting the color RGB image and splitting the channels. The Red channel was used as the basis for creating a spectral density negative (71% M, 71% Y). If time allows this weekend, I may try to place a layer of yellow gum bichromate over the cyanotype. I might also play around with using a grayscale negative rather than the spectral density version. The UV blocking ability of the spectral density negative seems to be functioning a little too well in the highlights and I have hopes that a thinner b/w digital negative might yield a more pleasing range of tones.