How does one spot RC paper?

[Ken Burns]

Jerry:

One small thing that can make a huge differenc here is to make sure you do not use a hardening fixer.

[paul owen]

Sal, Maybe I got a little carried away! It's just that there seems to be a lot of snobbery surrounding Fibre paper...if you use RC then you cannot be treated as a "proper" photographer! This attitude gets my back up. So what if fibre papers will last for eternity....not much use if the image is poor in the first place. Using fibre paper doesn't "make" you a LF photographer. I use both, despite having initial drying problems (that were sorted following advice on this forum). There is something "tactile" about fibre, but I still find I get similar visual quality from RC paper. Each type has its uses and as yet I've never had a customer ask what type of paper the image is printed on, they buy them 'cos they like them!! But modern RC is here to stay and will continue to improve. There I feel better now!!! Regards Paul

[Dave Anton]

Jerry, As people have mentioned, the key is to: 1. Use a small quality brush 2. Make sure you build up the color. Place a spot of diluted spot tone into the the area(being careful not to let it bleed outside of this area) and let it dry. When its dry and more is needed, place another spot onto the area again. For dark areas you will have to apply the spot tone several times. After a few trials, you should get it. Something that helps me is to do a test before each application on a practice print to see how dark the spot tone will dry.

[Pete Andrews]

"How does one spot RC paper?" - Easy. It says 'RC' on the box.OK joke over.My favoured technique for spotting is to use the finest point technical drawing pen (e.g. 0.1mm Rotring) filled with Indian Ink. Using such a pen you can stipple extremely tiny dots onto the paper, emulating the grain texture. There's no meesing about with brushes and different shades of ink, and with a bit of practise, the end result becomes pretty much invisible, even in a strong sidelight.