What Product(s) Are People Using to Spot Their Prints?

[Robert Kalman]

What makes you think Marshall Retouching is out of business? B&H currently has all kinds of their products in stock. Lots of other places carry it too. What hypothetically went out of business was SpotTone. But that really didn't disappear in any functional sense, because Marshall bought their product line and re-issued it under their own name, along with their own selection of products. No different than the classic SpotTone dyes I've been using all along.

I didn't say that Marshall's was out of business, and I'm aware they are making an array of retouching products for color media. Perhaps I should have been more specific; I was asking about the spotting products for black and white prints. Both Freestyle and B&H show that the products are no longer available. I didn't know about Nicholson's Peerless, and I appreciate Pieter bringing it to my attention.

[John Layton]

Are folks positive that Marshall's utilizes the exact same formula as Spot Tone?

[Jim Jones]

Years ago one of my best selling prints required half an hour of wrestling with Spotone. Now I do it much better and much quicker with Photoshop Elements.

[Fred L]

Still have lots of Spotone #3 and one or two of #0 and #1. Use lamp black and burnt umber for platinum prints.

[Mark Sawyer]

I use Spot Tone, putting a few drops on a piece of glass in a 5x7 frame with white board underneath as a palate. Then let it dry and reconstitute it with a few drops of water to the side, mixing to the desired tone with the spotting brush. (Spotting brushes could be their own extensive topic.)

I don't know what Ansel Adams used, but it's darkened considerably over the years. I've seen a number of his original prints at the Center for Creative Photography with noticeably dark spotting in the skies.

[Drew Wiley]

I find my Peerless dry set less cooperative than my regular SpotTone liquid dyes, which I stocked up on, either original label or Marshall label. I haven't tried liquid Peerless. The difficulty is blending precise tones which differ in different parts of the image, especially in split-toned prints. A little bit of the green SpotTone seems essential to some warm-toned applications. I've never personally had any of these shift intensity or discolor over my several decades of use and display.

Ansel claims to have advised his assistant to under-tone things due to the rumor of these dyes darkening over time; but who knows exactly was in them during that era? But many of AA's popular images required a LOT of retouching - a lot of dye buildup in patches. I've seen those pathetic slaves at work; might as well be Sisyphyus condemned to push a huge ball up a hill over and over again.

John - Marshalls bought out Spotone outright, and re-marketed those dyes under their own name for awhile. Whether they were simply bottling reserves or actually making new batches, I have no idea. But those are different than their lineup labeled "For Color or Black and White" prints, which they sold parallel. I have zero experience with the latter, which seemingly now is all they offer in dye fashion.

[Michael R]

Drew, what do you currently use for colour prints?

I find my Peerless dry set less cooperative than my regular SpotTone liquid dyes, which I stocked up on, either original label or Marshall label. I haven't tried liquid Peerless. The difficulty is blending precise tones which differ in different parts of the image, especially in split-toned prints. A little bit of the green SpotTone seems essential to some warm-toned applications. I've never personally had any of these shift intensity or discolor over my several decades of use and display.

Ansel claims to have advised his assistant to under-tone things due to the rumor of these dyes darkening over time; but who knows exactly was in them during that era? But many of AA's popular images required a LOT of retouching - a lot of dye buildup in patches. I've seen those pathetic slaves at work; might as well be Sisyphyus condemned to push a huge ball up a hill over and over again.

John - Marshalls bought out Spotone outright, and re-marketed those dyes under their own name for awhile. Whether they were simply bottling reserves or actually making new batches, I have no idea. But those are different than their lineup labeled "For Color or Black and White" prints, which they sold parallel. I have zero experience with the latter, which seemingly now is all they offer in dye fashion.

[Pieter]

I use Spot Tone, putting a few drops on a piece of glass in a 5x7 frame with white board underneath as a palate. Then let it dry and reconstitute it with a few drops of water to the side, mixing to the desired tone with the spotting brush. (Spotting brushes could be their own extensive topic.)

I don't know what Ansel Adams used, but it's darkened considerably over the years. I've seen a number of his original prints at the Center for Creative Photography with noticeably dark spotting in the skies.

I saw a Horst print in a gallery (it was the Corset) and the spotting of the black background was quite obvious. I don't know if the print had faded slightly or the spotting darkened. Or it could have been a print made for reproduction and the blacks would have been compressed enough that the spotting wouldn't show at all.

[Drew Wiley]

Michael - for color prints I just use my old set of Cibachrome retouching dyes. They are high quality azo dyes, and so far have held up well for both the old Cibas themselves and my Fuji RA4 prints, even on commercial display 15 yrs or more. These are dry dyes in a set, and sometimes still turn up on EBay.