NOTE: the recipes' table of contents is at the bottom of this page. If you are accessing this page for the first time, though, we kindly ask you to read carefully the following instructions before going further into the do-it-yourself world.
We have been requested by many of our friends, whose curiosity has been perhaps tingled by our work, to give suggestions to begin, technical details and formulas.
In the next pages you will find instructions about some of the techniques which in our belief will allow people with limited or no experience to achieve good results. Then we are giving details about more difficult techniques, requiring either a more skilled craftsmanship or needing more costly or hard-to-find chemicals compounds.
Some very specific technical papers can be found in the section devoted to technical papers.
As a last reminder we would like to stress the concept that like in every human activity where craftsmanship skills are part of the process, it is very difficult to tell in few lines all those little gestures and tricks which can easily be thought of as part of the successful process. A beautiful aspect of Ancient Techniques is indeed rediscovering that craftsmanship in actually "making" images.
But before that...
Some chemicals which are going to be used in the Ancient Techniques are harmless, some are poisonous. It is to be remembered that even developer and bleach used both in B&W and color processes are to be classified as toxic or poisonous. So anyone who has been wondering around a darkroom should be alert of how to handle a rather dangerous chemical substance.
Anyway, a rule of thumb is not to trust what you don't know. Better take useless precautions than not taking any.
So we warmly invite whomever will mix his own solutions to take safety as a serious matter.
A robe, working clothes, gloves (preferably nitryl, the blue ones) should provide adequate protection against accidental spills and contact with chemicals.
In ALL cases, one must avoid:
Safety light: not necessary.
OT coating is only sensitive to UV (Ultraviolet) radiation. This is why we can work in subdued daylight or with a normal incandescence lamp. As a precaution we advise not to use neon lights or energy-saving lamps, which may have an emission spectrum too close to UV.
Enlarger: not needed for OT themselves, because you are only going to print CONTACT prints. You may need an enlarger to make large format negatives to be contact printed.
Printing frame: this is the main tool, needed to put into contact the sensitized sheet of paper and the negative while exposing, keeping them tightly together. The best ones are built with a split back, so you can inspect the print at intervals while exposing, although to begin a simple wood frame kept in place by small steel clips is ok.
UV light source: you really need UV light to make anything happen!
Sunlight can be used as a source of UV light, but its consistency through the day and different periods of the year is a problem when it gets to obtain consistent results.
It is preferable to use UV lamps, even those used in beauty centers as tanning lamps. Their intensity is much lower than that of sunlight, but they are constant and ... available also at nighttime.
Brush: the most common tool to coat paper with the sensitizing solutions or emulsions.
To begin a normal soft-bristle brush is ok, and it can be found at any hardware store. Should be flat, 4-6cm (1 1/2 - 2 1/4 inches) wide.
As one's experiences goes on, personal preferences and expectations will rise accordingly so one will find in the vast range of brushes available in fine arts shops the brush which mostly suits his needs.
It is important to remind that any brush should be thoroughly washed and let dry out hang by its handle.
Finally, it is advisable to use a different brush for every kind of sensitizing solution.
Trays: it's ok to use the same trays you use for B&W paper developing.
Scale: just because OT solutions are mostly to be prepared at home from stock powdered chemicals, it is necessary to weight chemicals at least with "one gram" precision, better with "one tenth" of a gram precision. Electronic Scales for kitchen use could be used as well as small two plates balances, often used in the past to weight postage.
Bottles and other stuff: along with some 100 ml graduated cylinders, mainly used to mix solutions, some plastic, glass or porcelain containers will be needed to dip the brush into solutions. Small glass or plastic sticks are to be used to mix solutions.
Last, small syringes are the best tool to take out and measure the different solutions. Syringes are to be used without the needle and different sizes may be needed, from 2.5 cc to 20 cc. They can be reused if carefully washed with water after each use.
To measure even smaller quantities a dropper or an insuline syringe is needed.
Print Paper: begin with sketch paper, preferring watercolor paper of medium to heavy weight (150 g/mq and up), best if made of 100% cotton rag. The type of surface finishing is not critical, but rough surfaced papers are more difficult to handle.
The following classification is only indicative. Each process has different difficulties, sometimes regarding the manual skill or the long times required, other times the high cost of the chemicals needs to reduce the mistakes, or the materials are difficult to find, etc.. | ||
 | Some Notes on solutions' concentration | |
| Conversion tables and other utilities | |
| Paper sizing and treating | |
| My First Cyanotype | |
| My First Salted Paper | |
 | All the Formulae for Tonings | |