One other type of photography that I did while in school was cyanotypes. They, like gum bichromates, are chemicals exposed by the sunlight and one of the very first forms of photography. The woman who pioneered this was Anna Atkins. I actually think wikipedia does a great job explaining this process and also links to Anna Atkins part in this.
Here is a picture of a cyanotype that is in our blue & white bathroom.
Cyanotypes, unlike gum bichromates, are a one time exposure process. You take the coated paper with the negative on top out into the sun and expose it for about 5 or so minutes. There is a real beauty behind the process.
However, I am continually amazed at how the digital age can do this sort of thing quicker and easier than ever before. So here is how you would make a “Cyanotype” in photoshop.
Here is the original photograph: 
Go to Image — Mode — Grayscale:
After Grayscale go back to:
Image — Mode — Duotone. It will bring up a box and you can choose what color you want. Obviously for Cyanotype you want blue, but this can really be used for any color you want if you are decorating and want all red & whites or that sort of thing.
After I’m done I normally convert it back to CYMK or RGB so that I can save it as a .tif or .jpg. (Image — Mode — CMYK color).
That probably took me 2 – 3 minutes verses hours of waiting for chemicals to dry before exposing the print, then washing the print, then hanging it to dry.
![[ coffee shop ]](http://tinytwistcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/DSC_7330.jpg)
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh, I like that!
Ah, I love learning things like this! Thanks for generously sharing the knowledge.
Hurray for technology! This brings me back to the one photography class I took in college.
Interesting how different those 3 photos look.
I saw a show of cyanotypes done with leaves. It was really gorgeous.
Sweet! A very modern edge to a sweet photo.
Nicola
can’t wait to try doing this! thanks for the tech. info.. My husband knows how to do all these photshop things but I never can seem to listen when he says RGB and such i tend to tune out, but with your visuals/photos it makes things make sense and makes me want to give it a try.
Wonderful! Thanks for sharing this process.
I suppose traditional ‘dark room’ photography is a dying art form.
I couldn’t be more thankful for photoshop now.
Photoshop is just the way to go. It’s also a lot safer for the photographer so they don’t work with toxic chemicals. I took traditional photography classes back in high school and I loved the dark room – at the time I dreamed to have a dark room in my house one day
I also love how sometimes ‘not so perfect shots’ (too many colours/ busy backgrounds) look 1000 times better when in b&w or duotone. I sometimes use this effect on blurry photos – they look so artistic after by accident
Thanks for the tips. I’m loving your blog.