We finally had a sunny day, and I promptly used it for Vandyke printing (but it’s raining again when I’m writing this :( ). I had already made some inkjet negatives and underlying toning prints, so I was ready to go whenever exposing with sunlight would seem possible. I wanted to try printing at home, where I don’t have a darkroom or UV exposure equipment, so I need to use sunlight and simple basic techniques.

Here is the image that I wanted to print in vandyke (left) – it has been cropped, and minor adjustments made. Next I desaturated it, discarding the colors.

After curving the image (with a pre-constructed correction curve) I inverted it to negative and flipped horizontally. After filling it with green UV blockin color (R96-G229-B0) I printed it on transparency film. I also made a colorized version of the image (right). This I printed, as the underlying “toning” image, on the paper to be sensitized with VDB.

My goal here was to achieve a final print with a split tone effect, with warm shadows and cool highlights. My chemistry is the standard VDB chem, with the recommended workflow – details can be seen e.g. at AlternativePhotography.com.

Jalo Porkkala: The Ahlstrom Oak, pigment toned Vandyke brown print.



Pigment Toned Vandyke Brown

I put online a small video of making this print, you can view it on YouTube.

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