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lol, yeah. I figured it explained simply that it's a process you don't need a lot of equipment or specialized chemistry or tolerances.. pretty much the way I do most things..

Positive. Since this is a uv bleaching process, a positive is used.

What you're looking for is what chemically is known as a reducer what you might get some success with is ammonia or dishwasher detergent powder

I've tried a number of different things and I'm planning to do a video showing the different effects of using various chemicals the only one I will say to avoid is bleach because of course it bleaches

Honestly, I just mix in a teaspoon or so into a glass of warm water, basically saturating the solution. You just don't want undissolved borax crystals in the water.

@@paulbishop9896 thank you for that... will give it a try..:)

I would think it would work well, the glue will likely protect the image. Let me know if you try it!

Normal inkjet printer. You can buy transparency sheets specifically for use with inkjet printers at most office supply stores and whatnot. They have a "roughened" side designed to hold the ink; alternatively if you use a laser printer, they make transparency sheets for those also. If you can, bump up the contrast on the photo. It's certainly not an exact science, but for me part of the fun of it is the random factor.

@@paulbishop9896 Thanks, I enjoyed your video.

I tried it with some cotton fabric and it did work.. however you're going to want something with a high thread count, otherwise you're going to lose a lot of detail. Also, not sure how colorfast it might be on something like clothing, I suspect a washing or two might fade it fast (as well as if were used as clothes, outdoor UV sunlight exposure I'm sure would degrade it rather fast.) The way I look at it, the process is so cheap and simple, give it a try. If you do, let me know how it works.... I'm planning on doing another video on this process soon, it's just that the weather has been nice and the fish have been biting :)

@@paulbishop9896 Thanks Paul. Enjoy your fishing.

Erm, anyone ever watch indian food go stale? I would expect Tumeric flavored rice respond the same way and work as a "print" surface.. lol

Yes, please.

Do it 😆🎉

Yeah the wifey doesn't allow me to use "the good kitchen stuff" for my... "projects". She's learned. :D

Mine is just a 2.5W cheap chinese laser module, and for this kind of thing works well. Since it's only burning paint, pretty low power should work, I would suspect the process would be fine with even a 500mW laser, though it might have to be done slower

Honestly not tried it with photographic paper. Do you mean actual photoprint paper or "photo" printer paper? The process itself doesn't require a fixing stage like standard photo processing.

It's great for contact printing almost anything. Just remember unlike traditional photo printing, you use a positive rather than negative.. Crazy thing is, I found the process late one night while reading about Borax and precious metal refining, for no good reason. The only place I have found it documented was in a scholarly paper on sewage treatment using Tumeric/Curcumin and Borax.. and it was a sidebar mention in the paper, and showed a crude "photo" one of the researchers had made. From there, I just gave it a try. Alcohol tumeric extractions are used in chemistry as an indicator, so I knew that would work. Gave it whirl, and it worked wonderfully the very first time, and I've not been able to come up with a "better" process yet. It's pretty foolproof, nontoxic, measurements don't matter, and safe and fun even for kids. Leaf printing works great.

Did it work?

@@paulbishop9896 unfortunately not. I might have run out of patience or the UV light needed doesn't reflect enough like normal light.

You're welcome!

I would think so, but the exposure time might be REALLY long, maybe too long to be practical. If you give it a try, I'd be interested to know how it goes!

@@paulbishop9896 I have made my pinhole camera. But I don't have alcohol so I am using spirit and turmeric.

@@paulbishop9896 so I have placed a normal paper coated with turmeric and sanitizer in a tin can. The pin hole is made from sewing needle. And I have placed another paper beside camera and a worden cube on it(just like u did with eagle photo) and I also placed third paper in a black file so I can compare 3 papers . But today is not a very sunny day. It's been bit cloudy since sena year. But due to excitement I tried it today. I don't know what the camera will capture but the camera is facing some houses near and a cellphone tower which is very far. The cylindrical tin can camera is 4 inch long and circumference is 2 inch.

@@paulbishop9896 I am taking the observation in the interval of 1 hour. Matching the fadeness.

@@paulbishop9896 well, it didn't worked out. The whole paper became orange except some lines.

Did it work?

Let me know how it turns out! Also, if you make a batch of paper, as long as it is kept in a cool dark place, it will keep until you need it. I found a piece over a year old I had stuck in a book, and yep.. still works, maybe a little more exposure time was needed. Glad you enjoyed!

@@paulbishop9896 thanks Paul, I wondered about that...book sounds like a great place to store the made up paper... well that's my weekend sorted..just have to find some leafs..they are past their best here in UK but I will try some abstract household items.. e.g. lace, sewing pins, nails , and I've found the patterned cellophane that goes round bunches of supermarket flowers is amazingly good with sun photos. ... Cheers ☺️

@@paulbishop9896 I just read that you like to try new things...have you tried jewellery making ... cutting , soldering and hammering metal/copper is very addictive and not too expensive...!!!...

My pleasure 😊

Did it work?

Suze, did you end up trying it on fabric? Would love to know the outcome if you did. Thanks

I would think Soda Ash would work great

Yes I have. They seem pretty durable but I suspect UV light and oxygen will eventually degrade the images. I have topcoated with spray sealants (like polyurathane) on several, but even a couple years later even the non-coated are doing well.

Yes. That's the stuff. Check out the other vid where I make the paper, it's the common spice from the grocery store

Yes, I find a rinse is needed or Borax may even crystallize out. Prints that I have sprayed with a bit of polyurathane and kept from direct sunlight are still quite gorgeous now.. over a year later.

The Borax fixes it

Glad to hear!

Hmm. Borax is a common laundry product, it should be available.. if not, a chemist friend of mine suggested that a diluted solution of Dishwasher detergent (the stuff you use in an automatic dishwasher) might have similar effect, though it's likely the color toning might be different.

It's readily available on Ebay in the UK. I'm about to order some.

maybe experiment with baking soda as an alternative

I'm curious if anyone has found a good alternative for the UK or elsewhere. I've not picked up any to try it yet, but a chemist friend of mine suggested that dishwasher machine powder *might* be worth a try, something about pH and sodium carbonate, but he also said that the color probably would not be the same, as the Boron in Borax is probably giving that particular shade. Apparently there's like PhD level chemistry involved in what's going on, lol.. even though the process is quite old. As an aside, he also mentioned that altering the pH of the Borax solution might also change the color and toning, and went into a whole discussion of cabbage colors all being the same except for the acidity in particular breeds changes the color of the "dye" in the plants, so they are Red cabbages and purple cabbages, and green and all the ornamental cabbages.. and it's actually the same "dye" in the plant, but the acidity of the plant's "blood" which makes a cabbage it's breed's color. That was kind of neat. The point being that many natural dyes can be altered by changing the acidity they are exposed to. He didn't know if Curcumin (the dye that comes from Tumeric) was pH responsive, but that's easy enough to try out for ourselves. He suggested I might try adding lemon juice or baking soda to the Borax solution and seeing if that changed the color and toning. Planning on doing it one of these days, to give it a try.

I was also informed that Curcumin (the dye from Tumeric that we are using) is commonly used in laboratory chemistry as an indicator, especially in certain forms of chromatography. It's ability to glow under UV light is used to isolate certain chemicals they study. As I understand, it tends to bind to certain types of chemicals, making them visible by lighting up under a lab UV light. The paper that led me to the process was actually about the borax/curcumin reaction as it is used to purify water, and the authors had made a footnote discussion about they had used the curcumin and borax reaction to make contact prints while they waited to see if their sewerage treatment reaction worked. A bit of Google later and decided to see if it would work... and decided on my process completely adhoc, not really expecting the outcome to be so fantastic.

What is not working? Do you get bleaching of the unshielded parts of the paper under UV/sunlight? Is the problem with borax? Borax is no longer available in the UK where "borax substitute" is sold. This is a different chemical and I have been wondering if it will work for this process.

Glad you enjoyed. Going to be doing some more videos soon