LIQUID EMULSIONS... Liquid emulsions are a gods gift.. The possibility to make your prints on almost any surface is interesting - fun, and challenging.. AND it is in some ways even cheaper, than normal printing.... The technique is so comprehensive, that it will take far too much space to fully describe it here.. So - I will write a little about the basics, and refer you to a "bible" for more reading... The emulsion comes in various qualities - surfaces, and prices.. The easiest and cheapest that I know of is "SE 1" - made by Kentmere -in England..This is a great emulsion. The only thing I would like to change is the completely matt surface after drying. Some times I would like a more glossy surface. "Liquid light" from USA has this surface, but it is much more difficult (and more expensive) to work with.. Tetenal i Germany has made the emulsion "WORK" - Too expensive!!! (at least in Denmark) I recently found a GREAT emulsion in Prague! FOMA "Fotograficka emulze (sp?) - sold by the kilos.. Not expensive, but you must remember that it is important to apply this emulsion twice! So it takes a little longer to prepare the papers. The tonality and maybe especially the blacks in this emulsion are awesome! Not matt - not glossy, but somewhere in between. A deep - deep black! LOVE IT! The bad news is, that they don't seem to export this. And it is not on their home page. But if you buy enough (mail the factory directly) them they'll talk..;-) I ordered 10 kilos, and then it was ok. (that's a lot of emulsion, but if more people go together…) The emulsions are light sensitive materials mixed in gelatine. It comes in black bottles, and before using it, you must heat it in hot water (45-50 degrees).Then the gelatine becomes liquid, and you put it on paper in the darkroom. Use a brush with soft hairs, and no metal!! all wood brushes (Jai Ban or Sumi) are great, but expensive, so if you use one of these types - ONLY use it for this technique...(It keeps longer.) In the darkroom, the trick is to maintain the gelatine liquid, so place a plastic tray with flat bottom in a larger tray with hot water.. Pour not too much liquid emulsion in the plastic tray, and use the brush to - gently- coat the paper with emulsion... Start with a certain speed to cover the hole piece - then slow down, and be more gentle....The "high" speed will give air bubbles on the paper, but the low speed allows you to remove them again.. The direction of the strokes must be vertical - horizontal, and finally diagonal...more and more soft... When the emulsion begins to dry it will be sticky - stop the coating at this point, or you will get lumps of emulsion on the paper... Remember to prepare test strips also... Let it dry...Total darkness is best... The problem of coating right is, that too little emulsion will give a gray picture with lots of brushstrokes - too much emulsion will also give grey tones, because the light can't get through all the emulsion...It also tend to give much contrast. SO: just the "right" amount of emulsion is needed....! And this requires practice.. When you print, just do as normal (almost)..The dry emulsion requires about the double amount of light, than a normal paper.. And it has fixed contrast.. (about nr 2-2.5). The emulsion is, however, very sensitive to different developers... so you can alter the contrast by using different developers.. I have found out, that for the "SE1" emulsion, the "CENTRABROM" (soft developer from TETENAL) is brilliant...!! Lots of grey tones in all areas of the picture.... For higher contrast, i prefer AGFA NEUTOL WA..(AGFA is dying… alas, so there might not be anymore NEUTOL left..) You can even combine the two... Even higher contrast can be obtained using TETENAL EUKOBROM Don't fix too long!!! 10 min max in a fresh fix.. otherwise the paper soaks up a lot of fix, that you never will get rid of... Rinse as fibre based( baryt) paper.. ps: Be aware that the emulsion is soft during the whole wet process...so be careful with metal rods - nails etc.. PAPERS and such : any watercolour paper or even better: copper printing paper will do. The copper printing paper is supposed to be able to be in water for a long time - the surface is normally slightly softer than the water colour paper, so I prefer the thick copper printing paper. If you should be in doubt, then put a piece of your choise of paper in water for at least half an hour, and see what happens… The emulsion is very responsive to toning...braun - blue - green - selenium - bleaching - cobber - and combinations.. As I told you .IT IS A GREAT TECHNIQUE... For more know-how about this: please write me.. THE "BIBLE" about this technique is : "SILVER GELATIN" - by Martin Reed and Sarah Jones.. You can get it from www.silverprint.co.uk