Spoting finished prints

[Richard Boulware]

What are you guys using for spotting finished, ready to mount B&W prints? I understand Spot Tone is no longer made, and I just lost my Spot Tone dies. Thanks in advance.

[Louie Powell]

Marshall's has entered the market with a line of dyes that are very similar to Spottone - the only obvious difference being that the bottles have dropper caps so that you don't have to search around for the eye dropper that you got when your kids were babies.

[Keith Pitman]

Richard,

You can find Marshall dyes at Denver Pro Photo.

Best,

[Raymond Bleesz]

Richard---At Denver Pro photo--as mentioned-What I liked about these pens (magic markers of sorts) was that they had very fine points & came in a set of various degrees of grayness/blackness.

[Mark Sawyer]

I tried some spotting "pens" a few years ago and found the dried residue was more noticeable on the print surface than the spotone. Maybe they've improved...

BTW, I put a few drops of spotone on a piece of glass, let it dry, and "reconstitute" it with a wet spotting brush. Much easier than the recommended "use it from the bottle" approach. Is this common?

[Richard Boulware]

My thanks to all who have answered my question.

To 'Mark'....Right-on! All the professionsals I have ever known use this technique.

I always used an old watch crystal or a petri dish. You would mix the amounts of black, add some brown, or blue, let it dry and all the liquid would evaporate.

Then, with a double zero or tripple zero brush, you would wet the brush with a little bit of 'spit' and dab it into the dried Spot Tone, and apply to the print in tiny dots...almost microscopic.

In my final year at Art Center, we would joke that a certain image on the finished print was not on the negative, but put there with Spot Tone. One time an instructor threatened to do a 'tongue' check, to see if anyone had an excessively dark spot on their tongue!

If the new Marshalls tinting will produce the same results....wonderful. I'll give it a try.

Thanks to all for contributing.

Richard Boulware - Denver. (BFA, Art Center, class of '67)