Kodak Retouching Fluid replacement. Ideas?

[Tin Can]

I am reading Veronica Cass' book on film retouching.

Anybody have an idea for a 'glue like' fluid replacement that dries on negatives to allow pencil retouching, similar to discontinued Kodak Retouching Fluid?

[Sal Santamaura]

No, but if you use 320TXP it'll have "tooth" on both sides, i.e. ready to retouch.

[desertrat]

You can download this book for free:

https://archive.org/details/photographicfact00wall

The b/w pdf is one I use. There are several formulas for making your own retouching fluid.

[Tin Can]

You can download this book for free:

https://archive.org/details/photographicfact00wall

The b/w pdf is one I use. There are several formulas for making your own retouching fluid.

Wow. Excellent book. I just skimmed it. One 'recipe' has gasoline with a caution!

Also published during Prohibition so alcohol substitutes are listed.

Thank you!

[Tin Can]

No, but if you use 320TXP it'll have "tooth" on both sides, i.e. ready to retouch.

Yes, thanks!

[Drew Wiley]

Just go to any serious art store. They'll have a spray fixative for this kind of use, to give you tooth on the back of the film. It's a routine "graphics arts" product.

[Tin Can]

Just go to any serious art store. They'll have a spray fixative for this kind of use, to give you tooth on the back of the film. It's a routine "graphics arts" product.

I always prefer non aerosol. Do you have a product name?

The original was liquid in tiny 1/2 OZ bottles.

It's cold here and spraying anything inside is a bad idea and outside is not ideal either.

Thanks for the tip.

[mdarnton]

Randy, just looking at the recipes, as well as some others that I found, none of the varnishes are very esoteric, except that the ones based on turpentine will be much slower to dry than the ether ones, and the others will be in between. Otherwise, they resemble many common solvent-based varnishes, and use a variety of resins which appear to actually have very little in common, except that they're resins. The fixative idea doesn't sound off the wall, then, but if you want to play around, I have most of the ingredients necessary with the exception of ether, in my shop. Isn't ether what starting spray is? If so, maybe you can come up with some.

This is a project I've been meaning to try. I suppose the first thing I should try is take some of the normal stuff I use for repairs, and airbrush it on the back of a neg, just to see what happens. . .

[mdarnton]

Some things are easier to try than talking. I just took some of my repair varnish and sprayed it on a piece of glass. The result when thick was basically ground-glass looking and wrote on like a piece of paper, but it took very little to give enough tooth for me to sign my name on the glass. I have no idea how visible the frosting it gave would be in prints.

Wiping it on left "brush" marks. Using turpentime, giving time to flow out, might mitigate that. I don't know if they'd be important on negs. I remember the photographer I worked for in high school wiping retouch varnish on negs, but I never bothered to look at the results, so I missed my chance, I guess, by about 50 years....

Sprayable pressurized fixative made a MUCH worse surface than I could with my airbrush--the droplets weren't nearly as finely divided as the airbrush could do. Again, I don't know how much this would matter on film in retouching, but it didn't look that great on a piece of glass.

[mdarnton]

It's cold here and spraying anything inside is a bad idea and outside is not ideal either.

Just mix your sauce up with Everclear, put it on with an airbrush, and you won't care about breathing more, after a certain point. :-)

[Tin Can]

Just mix your sauce up with Everclear, put it on with an airbrush, and you won't care about breathing more, after a certain point. :-)

I have a fresh bottle right here. :)

Glad to hear of your experiments.

Ether is starting fluid and it does stick not around long. I hate the stuff and will never use for this or starting engines. Maybe a diesel engine at the South Pole...

[Harold_4074]

The original Kodak product appears to have some ingredient with a near-perfect refractive index match to film base, so that when it is dry there is a mechanical roughness but little or no optical scattering. The instructions that I have call for a drop to be quickly spread and rubbed dry with cotton, and the resulting film is remarkably thin. Maybe if I put some on a piece of film and use dark-field illumination in the microscope I will be able to see exactly what the texture consists of.

Now, if I can just remember to bring a sample in to work tomorrow....

[Tin Can]

The original Kodak product appears to have some ingredient with a near-perfect refractive index match to film base, so that when it is dry there is a mechanical roughness but little or no optical scattering. The instructions that I have call for a drop to be quickly spread and rubbed dry with cotton, and the resulting film is remarkably thin. Maybe if I put some on a piece of film and use dark-field illumination in the microscope I will be able to see exactly what the texture consists of.

Now, if I can just remember to bring a sample in to work tomorrow....

Please!

[Drew Wiley]

This is all a matter of technique. Of course you need "normal room temp" for anything, with all your ingredient brought up to correct working temp. You hang a neg on a clothesline in front of your fume hood or spray booth. And you need the right kind of pencils. I had a long talk with some ole feller who once did all of Hurrell's 11x14 negs, as one of his long-term assistants. But I'm getting to be an ole feller myself, and have done this kind of thing in the past. Mostly I prefer to
work with films that have good tooth to begin with, because the same feature makes them more immune to Newton's rings in the carrier. ... But ether????? Hope you don't get raided as a suspected meth lab, if you don't blow up the place all by yourself first !! Another problem with lacquers is that they're really really bad for your health. But good print lacquers were generally butyl acetate, which stays clear and flexible for awhile (not forever). Some of these products are now illegal around here, so I suspect that art store mostly sells clear acrylic fixatives these days. One trick is just like applying anti-newton sprays. You don't
spray your neg directly, but form a cloud of mist then swipe you neg thru it before it dissipates. Of course, in such cases it helps to have variable power on your
fume hood fan, so you can keep just the right tension between the time the product stays in the air, and having it still pulled away from your own nose, eyes, and lungs. But like I already said, these are basically graphics arts techniques, so photographers has forgotten most of them. There is really very little different
between a sheet of mylar drafting "vellum" and the back of a piece of sheet film.

[Tin Can]

Except very few are even trying to do negative touch up.

I hate to have go to APUG.

One of my regret's is never seeing my last wife hand touch up Playboy negs or chromes. She dismissed the whole thing as child's play.

[Drew Wiley]

Airbrushing is a whole different suite of techniques. If you have experience with that kind of equipment, fine. But it's overkill for just getting a pencil smudge surface.

[Tin Can]

Airbrushing is a whole different suite of techniques. If you have experience with that kind of equipment, fine. But it's overkill for just getting a pencil smudge surface.

All she told me was, she used a fine brush and any old paint she had. She had a lot of oil paint. She painted like Rembrandt.

Airbrushing was somebody else, I assume.

[Drew Wiley]

Airbrushing was usually done on the work print, afterwards. But anyway, here's how I ACTUALLY work with negs: I never mess with the original itself, but register a piece of frosted mylar to it, which itself readily accepts any kind of retouching dye or pencil. It helps to have a punch and register system; but for incidentals, you could register and tape by eye over a lightbox. I go the a big art store and pick up big sheets of 5-mil translucent mylar, frosted both sides. Don't use acetate because it's yellower, has a more conspicuous frosting pattern, and is not dimensionally stable. Then I carefully cut this into standard film working sizes of 8x10 and 4x5, then inspect each subsequent piece over a lightbox. If a particular cut piece has a minor flaw like a kink mark or bit of uneveness in the frosting, I'll set it aside for use only with images with a lot of complexity, where slight differences in final density won't appear anyway. For anything with an open sky or soft complexion, I'll only use sheets which are flawless, at least in that area of the image. 5-mil is a lot easier to handle than 3-mil; but these same sheet are also used for diffusion when working with unsharp masks etc. I believe Alan Ross teaches a system of pencil masking analogous to what I've described, though I've never looked into it specifically.

[Tin Can]

Thanks Drew, please keep it coming!

Next thread will be how to make a cheap DIY punch registration system. :)

I see the old ones still cost a more than anything else in a darkroom. :(

[Drew Wiley]

I use the Condit system, which was pretty expensive. The problem these days is finding matched sets where the punch and registration frame still match. Once
in awhile you can find graphics arts punches small enough for larger sheet film sizes; and pin bars can be made up for these. I did this for my wannabee dye transfer printing, if I'm ever able to retire from retirement honeydo lists. You search under commercial printing gear in that case, not photo or darkroom gear (companies like Ternes-Burton or Olec Stoesser). You can save a LOT, cause there's glut of this old print shop gear still around. Or if you have a professional machinist-quality drill press or milling machine, you can make your own. The average woodworking press has too much spindle wobble. In the old days people would use heavy 3-hole paper punches. But nowadays paper punches are junk. If an old solid one turns up somehow and will positively hold its settings, then you can adapt these. But anything like that and you still have to use a registration tab, taped on, because the holes will be 1/4 inch diameter. If you punch the film itself, you need micropins and the little tiny punch holes that go with them. Aligning sheet on a lightbox can drive you insane if you are working with small film, but isn't so bad for the occasional 8x10 neg. There are tricks to make this easier too; but I vastly prefer a precision punch and register system.

[Tin Can]

I'm not going to try historic negative retouching or punch registration on anything smaller than 8x10

[Jac@stafford.net]

I always prefer non aerosol. Do you have a product name?

Unscented, high-hold hair spray. The kind Hipsters use.
.

[Tin Can]

Unscented, high-hold hair spray. The kind Hipsters use.
.

I'm a Hipster, I never used it...

I define Hipster by location, since I live in Hipster central Chicago, I am guilty by location.

Jim Galli has the other location defended.

[Harold_4074]

A quick look at the surface of dry Kodak Retouching Fluid (catalog number 195 6309) shows nothing that can reasonably be expected to supply "tooth".

I put some on a piece of fixed-out HP5+, and saw an extremely uniform random distribution of spheroidal features---on the film base---but nothing distinctive on the retouching fluid deposit. (It was applied to the film back according to the instructions: apply a small drop, then rub out quickly with cotton.) I also let a small drop dry without wiping, and could not see anything in the interior or on the surface (200X, both bright and dark field).

The final check was to rub pencil lead against the surface, and look for evidence of anything abrasive that had collected the lead. Again, a null result, although the darkening by the lead is visible both by naked eye and through the microscope.

The stuff works, but nothing I've seen yet explains why :)

[Tin Can]

A quick look at the surface of dry Kodak Retouching Fluid (catalog number 195 6309) shows nothing that can reasonably be expected to supply "tooth".

I put some on a piece of fixed-out HP5+, and saw an extremely uniform random distribution of spheroidal features---on the film base---but nothing distinctive on the retouching fluid deposit. (It was applied to the film back according to the instructions: apply a small drop, then rub out quickly with cotton.) I also let a small drop dry without wiping, and could not see anything in the interior or on the surface (200X, both bright and dark field).

The final check was to rub pencil lead against the surface, and look for evidence of anything abrasive that had collected the lead. Again, a null result, although the darkening by the lead is visible both by naked eye and through the microscope.

The stuff works, but nothing I've seen yet explains why :)

Good work Harold! The hunt continues.

[Drew Wiley]

Are you sure, Harold? HP5 has its own integral retouch surface to the base.

[Harold_4074]

As I said, I could see the film base features, but the retouching fluid didn't add any discernible texture. What I didn't mention is that I also put some on a microscope slide, and couldn't see anything there, either, even after rubbing with a lead pencil.

I think I still have some Arista Edu 120 film, which appears not to have a retouching surface, so I may try the experiment again.

For what it is worth, the transparent-looking liquid in the bottle does slightly scatter the beam from a helium-neon laser. I put a tiny bit of Cab-O-Sil (fumed silica) in some deionized water, used an ultrasonic cleaner to disperse it, and the resulting "transparent" liquid also scatters the laser beam about the same way the Kodak fluid does. So there could be something particulate in there, but my simple experiments didn't reveal it.

[Sal Santamaura]

...HP5 has its own integral retouch surface to the base.Are you sure, Drew? Every sheet of HP5 Plus I've seen has a naked polyester base side. The only currently available sheet film I'm aware of that has a retouching-compatible base coating is 320TXP.

[Drew Wiley]

Sal, in a few cases the terminology has changed. They might not call it a retouching surface anymore, but combine it with the more contemporary marketing concept of facilitating scanability. It's damn easy to tell if you happen to work with these various films in a masking environment. In sheet films, the slick ones are
more the exception rather than the rule, like ACROS, TMX, Delta 100, now-disc TechPan. But films like HP4 and TMY accept retouching just fine. The neo FP4 ("plus") is intermediate in this respect. Roll films are almost all a pain in the butt.

[Drew Wiley]

I should have added that even current Kodak color neg sheet films have a distinct micro-texture to the back. This obviously wasn't put there for the sake of retouching, which is not as common as once, but to improve scanning - perhaps by acting as an anti-Newton surface. I don't know if AN is the official explanation, but it is certainly a conspicuous recent characteristic, even if not totally effective in this respect. But at the same time, it gives it a tad of "tooth" for dye or soft pencil (though I already stated how I prefer to do this kind of thing on a separate registered sheet). TXP might still have an older method of altering the base. I don't know. But it is a film deliberately marketed to die-hard traditionalists, or else it would have already died off itself, like Super-XX, now that highly versatile TMax films are their lead multi-use product. And posting on this yesterday, I was imagining just how much fuss AA went to dodging and burning his famous smoke damaged neg of "Clearing Winter Storm", and just how easy it would have been to shortcut that whole complicated process using a master registered mask with the dodging and burning already built in, which was common color printing and graphics protocol even back then. Apparently, he wasn't
familiar with these extant "power tools", and never mentioned them in his how-to books.

[Sal Santamaura]

Are you sure, Drew? Every sheet of HP5 Plus I've seen has a naked polyester base side. The only currently available sheet film I'm aware of that has a retouching-compatible base coating is 320TXP.


...In sheet films, the slick ones are more the exception rather than the rule, like ACROS, TMX, Delta 100, now-disc TechPan. But films like HP4 and TMY accept retouching just fine. The neo FP4 ("plus") is intermediate in this respect...Are you referring to base or emulsion? I never used Tech Pan, but, of the sheet films you list, Acros and 100TMX have very glossy emulsions that almost inevitably result in rings. Delta 100's emulsion surface is much less glossy and has never made rings in a plain (lower) glass carrier for me, even under environmental conditions that "catalyze" ring formation. :)

On the base side of all those sheet films, I'm unable to detect any kind of texture, micro or otherwise. In a glass carrier without AN top glass, they reliably produce rings under any environmental conditions. 320TXP is an entirely different animal. Its emulsion side is more dull than even HP5 Plus or FP4 Plus. On its base side, an extra layer is coated during manufacture that dulls the Estar and provides tooth for retouching. An extra benefit from that is a complete absence of ring formation in a glass carrier with plain glass both top and bottom.

Even if one is not enamored of 320TXP's curve shape, grain, reciprocity, etc., I enthusiastically recommend picking up a box in the size you normally enlarge from. No need to expose it; just clear in fixer, wash and dry. Then sandwich your glossy-emulsion negatives between two blank sheets of 320TXP. Voila -- no rings and no AN glass texture at any aperture. Probably also worth trying if flatbed-scanning them.

[Tin Can]

An anonymous email has supplied a tip for the main particulate ingredient. I have ordered a sample. I cannot reveal my source.

I am now seeking the solvent used to float it.

[Drew Wiley]

Are you misreading this, Sal? Those four films I specifically mentioned (Acros, Delta 110, 100TMX, and TP) are obviously slippery on both sides, and are therefore the exceptions among current sheet films, i.e., those WITHOUT perceptible tooth on the base. Most others have a degree of it. I do appreciate your use of TXP to suppress rings. But I prefer to do it with high-grade AN glass both top and bottom. When I must register two slippery films back to back to generate some kind of special unsharp mask, I simply use ordinary mylar diffusion sheet, frosted both sides, which kills any newton ring activity. It's a lot cheaper too! And even better, it cleans far easier than film. Getting tiny specks of this or that off any kind of photo film takes patience. A simple low-pressure blast from a filtered compressed air line usually does it instantly for mylar drafting vellum. Even AN glass is a pain in the butt to clean. Tiny blemishes that won't even show when enlarging an 8x10 neg look like blimps in open skies of med format shots. Went thru that last nite.

[Sal Santamaura]

Are you misreading this, Sal? Those four films I specifically mentioned (Acros, Delta 110, 100TMX, and TP) are obviously slippery on both sides, and are therefore the exceptions among current sheet films, i.e., those WITHOUT perceptible tooth on the base. Most others have a degree of it...No, not misreading anything. The other films I mentioned (HP5 Plus and FP4 Plus) as well as 400TMX are also, in my experience, without any tooth on the base. Just pure, slick, glossy, ring-producing polyester. Exactly like the base, i.e. non-emulsion, sides of Acros, Delta 100, and 100 TMX. I've never seen any texture on a sheet film base other that the tooth-providing layer intentionally added to 320TXP. Do I need a microscope? :)

The beauty of using 320TXP rather than mylar diffusion sheet is -- no significant diffusion! Doesn't make much difference on the image-bearing negative's base side, but an advantage on its emulsion side. Use any enlarging lens aperture desired rather than needing to be wide open.

[Christopher Nisperos]

I am reading Veronica Cass' book on film retouching.

Anybody have an idea for a 'glue like' fluid replacement that dries on negatives to allow pencil retouching, similar to discontinued Kodak Retouching Fluid?


Yes, I have some. PM me if you're interested.

[Doremus Scudder]

Yes, I have some. PM me if you're interested.

Christopher,

Maybe you could post you ideas here, since there are others who are interested and could benefit from them. This is a forum after all, and an important source of information for many, not just the OP.

Or, is there something about your ideas that you need to keep secret and can only communicate to the OP?

Doremus

[muihlinn]

There is a german company specialized in graphic arts which manufactures several products suitable to this business.

http://www.rohrer-klingner.de/index.php?id=9&L=1

No idea about the availability in the USA.

[Tin Can]

There is a german company specialized in graphic arts which manufactures several products suitable to this business.

http://www.rohrer-klingner.de/index.php?id=9&L=1

No idea about the availability in the USA.

With your tip I found this free eBook and excerpt on Google. Published 1894. The Photographic Journal of America ..., Volume 31

128904

[muihlinn]

Great find Randy, this reminds me that a while ago I found how to make AN glass in a similar paper, I believe it was an early Kodak publication, but despite my efforts I haven't been able to find it again.

[Rafal Lukawiecki]

Randy, have you tested those recipes? If so, any observations?

[Tin Can]

Randy, have you tested those recipes? If so, any observations?

No, still researching and gathering materials.

[Rafal Lukawiecki]

No, still researching and gathering materials.

I am looking forward to your findings, Randy. It is relatively easy to get a solution of Gum Damar here, and it would be wonderful if the varnish was as easy as that. I've no idea how bad this would be for the negative's longevity, though.

[mdarnton]

Damar is one of the more stable resins. The thing to worry about would be abrasion, in that it's likely to be more tender than the film

[Tin Can]

Damar is one of the more stable resins. The thing to worry about would be abrasion, in that it's likely to be more tender than the film

Seems photography had once again stolen from the Masters. Which is good news as this stuff seems almost ready for use. It may need to be thinned with solvent.

Grumbacher Damar Liquid Varnish (http://www.dickblick.com/products/grumbacher-oil-painting-mediums/)

I have a pound of synthetic tree resin. As I continue my quest.

I want to thank Dan Dister for graciously giving me a Kodak retouching knife.

byte by byte we retrieve the past...

[Drew Wiley]

Just realize that these kinds of products probably aren't very good in an archival sense for other negatives in the storage box, even when you apply them on the back of your working neg. One more reason to do your alterations on a separate registered sheet of mylar, and store these separately.

[Tin Can]

Just realize that these kinds of products probably aren't very good in an archival sense for other negatives in the storage box, even when you apply them on the back of your working neg. One more reason to do your alterations on a separate registered sheet of mylar, and store these separately.


Thanks Drew, next will be a DIY pin system.

and I also need to shoot something worth archiving...

I have plenty of crap negs to play on.

[Christopher Nisperos]

Hi Randy,

Just a reminder that all this bruhaha of mixin' up your own retouching dope will be unnecessary once you receive the bottle of matoline (that I'm still searching for at this moment! I'll respond to you by pm once it's found and weighed for sending).

Meanwhile, I've dug up a formula for dope from one of my ancient British Journal of Photography almanacs. For all my colleagues out there who are into mixing their own whatever (dope, developers, toners, etc.), a piece of advice —or a reminder: instead of endlessly re-inventing the wheel and/or searching under ever stone for prized-but-obscure formulas like this which mainly concern our closed circle of interest, I highly advise the following resources for your personal "ancient technical information" library:

- Morgan & Morgan Photolab Index

- British Journal of Photography Almanacs (they were issued annually, so I'd say any from between 1939 -1955)

- Kodak technical data booklets, 1940s-1960s (big DUH, but these cute little booklets are SO overlooked! They are just packed with info, but often written in a way which assumes that you already have profound previous knowledge of a lightly mentioned subject, therefore I've found the best way to squeeze the maximum informational value out of this fine resource is to absolutely take the given information to the letter. For example, when a phrase says, "... first, develop your negative 'correctly' ", well, that means a whole lot, in Kodakese. They've assumed you've already read their booklet on negative development to know what constitutes 'correctly', in their jargon —so it's good to at least have the other booklet(s) on hand to refer to... )

==========================

Here's the dope formula from the BJP of 1949
(DISCLAIMER: I've never tried this formula, so use it at your own risk —there's benzol in it, for example— and, of course, it'd be wise to test it on a junk negative first):

Dammar .. .. .. .. .. .. 1/2 oz.
Turpentine .. .. .. .. .. 2.0 oz
Xylol or Benzol .. .. .. 8.0 oz

"To dissolve the dammar, shake the container at intervals and filter, using the less toxic xylol for preference.

"To prepare the negative, lay it down on a piece of clean paper at least 3 inches large all around, then take a 2-inch square piece of clean rag made into a pad and saturate it with medium. Apply this to the emulsion side of the negative, but not so liberally that it flows underneath, then immediately smooth out the coating with a large pad of soft rag, as for instance a piece of old cambric or lawn hankerchief, working with an even circular motion until some slight resistance is felt.

"At this point the medium should be evenly and thinly coated without streaks, which if present in a negative of low density will be visible in the print. It may be necessary to thin down the medium if it dries too quickly, or is too tacky, and this may be done with a little with a little turpentine added cautiously."

======================

The text goes on to talk about how to apply the pencil to the negative, how to block-out and how to spot negatives, but I believe the information in Kodak's retouching book ["Photographic Retouching" by Vilia Reed - Publication No. E-97] does a better job of telling (and showing) you how to do this. If you're serious about negative retouching, this book is the best on the subject.

Hope this information is helpful and, as well, I hope y'all will get some of these books ... my fingers are tired! ;o))

Best,

Christopher

[mdarnton]

I was worried about that streaky thing, given that mostly I shoot low-key. If I try this, I think I will try my airbrush first, then.

So what this sounds like is a common resin and a relatively slow evaporating solvent to give working time (turpentine), combined with a faster solvent to aid solvent release. Some resins don't like to let go of solvents over very long periods of time (hours or days, though damar isn't too bad in that respect), and the xylol would speed that up. In the other recipes ether plays that role. These days I use toluol rather than xylol (smells slightly better) for similar purposes, but ether smells the best. :-)

I really don't think negatives with this recipe would contaminate other things in your negative file. This is the kind of mix that is quite stable once evaporated. Damar is used for painting restoration because of its chemical stability relative to many other similar resins. I'm not much into fearing everything that exists, just because: I think it's much better to learn about the chemicals you use and understand them and how they work. However, for those of you who like to lay awake at night worrying, there's this: http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

Which reminds me of that old joke: "Here, smell this--does this rag smell like chloroform to you?"

I've discovered that my double-sided x-ray negs take pencil quite well on either side, no prep needed, by the way.

[Tin Can]

I was worried about that streaky thing, given that mostly I shoot low-key. If I try this, I think I will try my airbrush first, then.

So what this sounds like is a common resin and a relatively slow evaporating solvent to give working time (turpentine), combined with a faster solvent to aid solvent release. Some resins don't like to let go of solvents over very long periods of time (hours or days, though damar isn't too bad in that respect), and the xylol would speed that up. In the other recipes ether plays that role. These days I use toluol rather than xylol (smells slightly better) for similar purposes, but ether smells the best. :-)

I really don't think negatives with this recipe would contaminate other things in your negative file. This is the kind of mix that is quite stable once evaporated. Damar is used for painting restoration because of its chemical stability relative to many other similar resins. I'm not much into fearing everything that exists, just because: I think it's much better to learn about the chemicals you use and understand them and how they work. However, for those of you who like to lay awake at night worrying, there's this: http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

Which reminds me of that old joke: "Here, smell this--does this rag smell like chloroform to you?"

I've discovered that my double-sided x-ray negs take pencil quite well on either side, no prep needed, by the way.

You know exactly what it is.

Add a tiny bit of lavender oil, for an even better 'nose' which I smell in Kodak Retouching Fluid.

[Christopher Nisperos]

Christopher,

Maybe you could post you ideas here, since there are others who are interested and could benefit from them. This is a forum after all, and an important source of information for many, not just the OP.

Or, is there something about your ideas that you need to keep secret and can only communicate to the OP?

Doremus

Hi Doremus,

I'm just seeing your response now, several years after you posted it, so sorry for the delay. In fact, part of my response to your reproach is that, clearly, I don't come to this forum very often.

The other part is that I didn't have any "ideas" to contribute; what I had was [and probably still do have, somewhere] a bottle of retouching fluid to offer, as the OP was seemingly going to very big lengths in order to cook-up his own stuff. I was trying to be nice. I'm sorry you read-into it as some sort of lurking or "hiding information" . . . I simply don't have enough bottles of retouching fluid to supply all those who might've been interested, that's all!

Happy New Year, quand même!

Christopher

[LabRat]

Another thing that might work was years ago (when I did extensive print toning experiments) was sometimes the toners were rough on a print surface and be uneven, so (I don't remember the exact proportion) but I would mix Knox gelatin into solution, and dip the prints in to smooth out unevenness by re-coating... This would dry with a very fine, very slight texture that might hold lead... The entire film could be immersed, then dried, hopefully giving some "tooth" to the base...

Gum dammar would work, but can take a very long time to dry if thick (hours/days), and stink up the room, so a consideration... (I use this to recoat very dry/brittle vintage paper speaker cones, and it takes about a week to set and stop stinking when using the good art store product...)

Michael's suggestion to pencil retouch a little on the emulsion side bears merit if you have a base side that's ultra smooth, and you can pencil the first time around without removal...

Steve K

[Tin Can]

Good tips. I like the old speaker suggestion especially. I use a 70’s set of Shure Vocal Masters fo my home system. In my room it’s a wall of sound. :)

[Sean Mac]

SpectraFix is a workable fixative made with milk casein.

"Health safe" "All Natural" and "Odor Free" according to the container.:)

An airbrush is probably the ideal way to apply it.