Fixed out paper of any type can be used as long as some surfactant is used to overcome the hardener induced resistance of a pre-coated paper. Mixing in a little gelatin to increase viscoscity can help a lot when coating on any fixed out paper.
In fact, I have coated some execllent cyanotypes and VDBs on plain baryta paper by adding a surfactant and gelatin.
PE,
Can you go into more detail about surfactants? I guess this is something along the lines of subbing so the emulsion sticks to the surface. Can you suggest some things to use for this? If using gelatin, would you simply float it or brush it on like you would any watercolor paper?
Thanks,
Steve www.scdowellphoto.com
Tween 20, Triton X 100, Triton X 200, Photo Flo 200, Photo Flo 600, well the list goes on. Try to google surfactant. You have to choose the surfactant for the photo system you are using. For example, ionic surfactants can react with the oxalic acid in some alternative processes.
I have tried a salt print on the fixed out RC paper. I floated the salt and brushed the nitrate. It absorb very little solution and extra was crystalysed on the surface as it dried. As it exposed in the sunlight, the negative stuck to the paper really hard. I had to pry the negative off and it peeled small piece of the paper surface around the crystal. Well, I lost the negative but the print came out beautiful reddish brown I have never seen on the watercolor papers and the detail was exceptioal. Overall It had a similar look to a albumen print.
Next time I will try a little Photo-Flo. Thaks for the good advise.
Mixing in a little gelatin to increase viscoscity can help a lot when coating on any fixed out paper.
In fact, I have coated some execllent cyanotypes and VDBs on plain baryta paper by adding a surfactant and gelatin.
Again, I'm a little confused. Mixing in gelatin with what - the sensitizer or to gelatin coat the paper before? A little more detail about "adding a surfactant and gelatin" would be very helpful.
I have read that some people use fixed out silver paper and was thinking of using a stack of 5x7 RC paper that I have sitting around and will probably never use for darkroom printing. Would RC paper work? And are regular photo papers too alkaline for Cyanotypes?
Any further information of using regular photo paper for alt. printing would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Anupam
As Vaughn suggests, fixed out B&W can be used for carbon printing transferring the image to the emulsion side of the paper.
I know a local palladium printer who uses the back side of fixed out FB paper for printing. Not my cup of tea but it does work.
Again, I'm a little confused. Mixing in gelatin with what - the sensitizer or to gelatin coat the paper before? A little more detail about "adding a surfactant and gelatin" would be very helpful.
Many thanks,
A
Mix your cyanotype as usual and add to it some gelatin to thicken it as desired then add some surfactant and coat. Too thick and it leaves brush strokes or bubbles, too thin and it can fail to coat completely. It may take more than one coat depending on how dilute your reagents are in the sensitizing solution.
I have used cyanotype chemistry on developed and fixed x-ray film successfully - adding a bit of photoflo to the chemistry before applying definitely helped.
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Originally Posted by David A. Goldfarb 
