Masking 8x10 negatives question

[Henry Yorke]

Hi, everyone.

I recently received a number of 8x10 negatives that were shot in the mid-60s. Many of them have been masked out so that they can be printed like this:

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The negative has been masked with some kind of liquid that has then dried:

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Can anyone tell me what this liquid is? It looks to have been very skilfully applied.

Thanks.

[Drew Wiley]

Looks like creosin red. I generally misspell it, but it was commonly used in liquid form, mixed from a red dye. There were also applied sheet red mask products. It takes some effort to find bottles of Kodak red dye nowadays; but a single bottle of powder might last a lifetime of casual use. Look at any old Kodak darkroom or graphics art book. It was the pre-Photoshop method of dubbing in cigarette smoke into a portrait without clouding up the actual studio, back when holding a stinky cigar or cigarette lent sophistication.
Bland skies obtained swirly clouds with a few swishes of highly dilute red dye - even faster an easier than Photoshop. And somewhat more concentrated, it was used for total block-out, like the example posted here.
One really nice thing about red dye is that it dries fast and can be slowly built up to the exact desired density. But whenever possible, I prefer to apply the dye to a registered sheet of frosted mylar, instead of to the back of the neg itself. That way, the original is not altered at all. In most cases, a film cleaner will remove it, but sometimes not entirely.
One can do highly repeatable printing this way, basically replacing complicated dodging sequences. Yes, smudge pencil works too, but is messier and not as crisp if needed. One learns all kinds of still-useful tricks by perusing those old printing manuals.

[Henry Yorke]

Thanks, Drew - really interesting.