Baryta prints

[ryunin]

Hi guys, I haven't been here for a while, and I ' ve been busy developing and making my first prints. As for prints, I have a dilema. RC or baryta. I know the pros and cons, RC easier to make, quick, look pretty good anyway, but baryta is more like classic, style, and if I have a fine photograph I definitely want to have it for a long time, possibly for my children and grandchildren in baryta. I also pretty hate the feeling in my fingers when I deal with RC prints, when they are wet, I just really hate that plastic stuff. I don't know why.

In the Czech Republic my photography friends all use glass and tape to keep the baryta paper from .... twisting, curving when the print is drying, how you call it. I wonder if you do the same, if that's the only way or the traditional way, using glass. Or if you know a link to send me to some relevant articles , please do. Thanks lots.

 

[ryunin]

after posting the OP i found out that you don't call them baryta prints but fiber I think, so I found out about some fiber driers or something but still I would like to know what the traditional way to deal with fiber prints is - was it always just a piece of glass and tape? or something else? can you use the same piece of glass over and over again although it is now covered in remains of tape? etc etc, please tell me about your experience and what gives best results

 

[Paul Ron]

Baryta is a white base coating on fiber papers to keep the emulsion from saturating into the paper itself. Uses less emulsion, makes a more consistant coating for much more even image. THis coating can also be tinted giving papers an off white hue or any other color the manufacture may want to include ini their product lines.

Fiber prints are dried flat on a dryer. The dryer is a highly polished metal surface covered with a canvas to keep teh print flat against the metal. If you want a matt print, you turn the emulsion side to the canvas instead of the metal surface. If you are going to make glossy prints you will have to do a final wash in a special solution designed just for glossy prints that will make perfect surfaces everytime. With out the solution, well not all prints will dry perfectly, it's a crap shoot n lots of technique.

 

[maris]

Hi guys, I haven't been here for a while, and I ' ve been busy developing and making my first prints. As for prints, I have a dilema. RC or baryta. I know the pros and cons, RC easier to make, quick, look pretty good anyway, but baryta is more like classic, style, and if I have a fine photograph I definitely want to have it for a long time, possibly for my children and grandchildren in baryta. I also pretty hate the feeling in my fingers when I deal with RC prints, when they are wet, I just really hate that plastic stuff. I don't know why.

In the Czech Republic my photography friends all use glass and tape to keep the baryta paper from .... twisting, curving when the print is drying, how you call it. I wonder if you do the same, if that's the only way or the traditional way, using glass. Or if you know a link to send me to some relevant articles , please do. Thanks lots.

I use only baryta/fibre based photographic paper and I air-dry the photographs after their achival wash. When dry the photographs are strongly curved but I flatten them in a soft-bed dry-mount press. The press is set at 90 degrees Celcius, the photographs are squeezed between smooth white mount boards for ten seconds and they come out perfectly flat. The hot photographs are cooled under a sheet of thick glass and they stay flat forever.

A good dry-mount press makes working with baryta/fibre paper a pleasure. Dry mounting is a technique that has fallen out of favour in the digital era so good used presses should be available for reasonable money. Mine cost $70.