MorseBlog

For various reasons I am moving to SubStack as my new blogging platform. I will move content over as I have time. In the meantime, I will keep the old Blogger site called Morseblog available.  Please come follow my activities here on SubStack . 

I have been experimenting with Fomatone MG Classic Warmtone paper recently. I have found it has a pleasing look when developed in ECO 4812 which is not a warmtone developer. It maintains a warmer tone that can verge on green in some light. I do not like green toned prints and have remained confused as to why this is considered a warmtone.  However this paper has grown on me. Along the way I have tried some toning, and this can clean up any residual green tone if it becomes too bothersome. The paper tones well in sepia toner if more brown tone is desired.  As part of this process, I decided to investigate the same print on Ilford MGFB Classic which is a neutral to cold tone paper. This is my usual paper which when developed with Eco 4812 developer has a nice neutral tone. This paper does not tone well in sepia . A very small amount of sepia takes the colder 'edge' off the print, but further toning gives a cloying pinkish tone. As an aside Ilford MG ART 300 paper gives a much ni...

When I first began to learn printing in the darkroom, I went through a phase of picking up different expired papers. Partly because they were cheap and also to experience what the properties and history of these old papers were like. Eventually I came to the conclusion that most papers are too fogged to be worth the effort and whatever characteristics they had once have long since diminished with time.  Of course, I use a number of these for lith printing and toning with some great results. Papers like Fohar Raster with an embossed pattern of dots I suppose was to suggest the idea of a CRT? ORWO, Oriental Seagull, Agfa-Gevaert Rapidoprint are some other examples. One paper that stood out for me was Negra Portrene made in Barcelona. At the time I bought some I researched the paper as best I could here ... and determined it went out of business in the 1970's when Spain was still ruled by a fascist dictator.  I bought the paper because it was unopened and 16x20" and I wanted to t...

I have returned to this old paper recently and have decided to try lith printing it again. It is a single grade warmtone paper from the 1970's. When I first bought it I found it lithed well and this has been born out again. I used Fotospeed Lith developer in that first trial and now I use Moersch EasyLith and have learned a bit more about lith printing since then.  Everything I learned in that original post bore out in my work today. The paper develops really fast in hot lith developer within seconds for the first print at a +3 stop overexposure. The developer settled down as the developer cooled and I reduced the exposure. I actually managed to get good prints (indeed the best) with very little exposure. As a gauge of this a reasonable conventional print was made at f8 for 32 seconds. The second print was made with less exposure at f8 for 22 seconds.   I used a negative from my Fuji GFX 50s ii digital camera made at Gammatech . This was an image I took at night during a...

A few days ago, I completed a set of prints on Fomatone MG Warmtone paper. Mostly to see what this paper was like and to print another film negative made from a digital image. The negative was one I made with my Fuji GFX 50s ii digital camera then had converted to a 4x5 negative by Gammatech in the USA. This I then printed conventionally in my enlarger.  For this project I bought a pack of 10pcs of Fomatone 9.5" x 12" paper. The first sheet was for test strips and then a couple of initial prints before I had what I liked. The remaining sheets I printed at two different exposures. In general, the tail end of such a small packet of paper would not be sufficient to complete another print unless I got lucky. I also wanted to experiment with some toning of the paper so having a number of prints to play with helps me explore the toning topic more.  Toning The basic strategy I decided to pursue was some basic split toning. In general, I find toning is less chaotic than lith printi...

Another print in this series of digital images made into negatives for conventional silver gelatin prints. You can find earlier incarnations here ...  Blog Post Image This time I decided to experiment with a warmtone paper. The genesis of this was that I noted, and Andrew Sanderson master printer prints exclusively on Ilford Warmtone paper. I have a bias towards neutral tone papers and developer, and I typically use Ilford MGFB Classic with a very white baryta paper base or Ilford Art 300 paper with a cotton rage paper that is slightly warm in tone. I use Moersch ECO 4812 developer which is a neutral developer on these papers.  I do not know the reasons for Andrew Sandersons choice but there are some printers that prefer a slightly warm tone and will add a barely noticeable sepia tone to a finished print. It is also possible that it provides more opportunity for toning generally. So I thought why not?  I do not have a warmtone developer however so there is a limit at this...

Another print from this series that emphasizes negative space using film negatives created from a digital image.  I made a series of images on the same foggy morning on Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho. There was some ice on the lake and a shifting fog obscuring and revealing the far shore.  I find foggy images exceedingly difficult to print and there can be many interpretations of an image as a result. ( Here is an example of one such exploration of the range of a print's possibilities.) The difficulty stems from the lack of ability to manipulate the contrast using multi-grade paper. There is a limited contrast range achievable even from the highest contrast filter. The negative itself has a very compressed range of tone due to the subject matter. (This is perhaps where digital can excel however the limited range is inherent in the image and even digital can create visible quantization effects unless one is careful in post processing. ) There are other techniques to improve the con...