The past couple of weeks, I’ve been experimenting with cyanotype as a way to get people to look more closely at plants. This post is some notes to myself about cyanotype resources. (Updated 30 May 2025 with additional links and more info.)
Cyanotype in the classroom
Lawrence Hall of Science sells “Sunprint Kits” with 12 pieces of 4 inch square cyanotype paper and a clear acrylic overlay sheet. Cost buying direct from them is US$5.99 per kit (do not buy from Amazon where the price is higher).
Lawrence Hall of Science also sells refill packs of 12 sheets of cyanotype paper for US$3.99. The kits and refills are ideal for class use — inexpensive enough to allow people to experiment. You can also purchase kits and refills with 8-1/2 by 11 inch cyanotype paper from them. The larger sheets are more expensive (about US$1 per sheet), but if your class gets serious about cyanotypes the larger size allows for more possibilities.
Cyanotype supplies
Chemistry
Jacquard Products sells cyanotype sets — two plastic bottles with cyanotype chemicals that you fill with water, then mix the resulting solutions 1 to 1 when you’re ready to coat your paper. (I bought my set at an independent art supply store, but haven’t yet used it. You have to coat the paper in a low light setting, and dry the paper in darkness. I haven’t yet figured out a place where I can dry the paper.) Jacquard also sells a kit which includes a brush and other useful stuff.
Other sources for cyanotype chemistry include Photographer’s Formulary and several European suppliers.
The Cyanotype Store sells a cyanotype kit which includes chemicals as well as a light-safe bag, which could be useful. But honestly, this kit doesn’t seem as high quality as the Jacquard kit (see above).
Fotospeed sells a kit for an alternative cyanotype process — this is a different chemistry, and supposed to be a superior process.
Paper
Finding paper that’s good for cyanotype can be a challenge, since not only must the paper stand up well to repeated wetting, but the pH of the paper is also important. Christina’s Anderson’s 2018 article on paper choices is dated by now (some of the papers are no longer made, as paper companies change things over time), but worth reading.
One of the paper Anderson recommends highly is Canson Bristol Recycled. This appears to be the same as what is now sold under the name Canson XL Bristol Recycled. This paper is inexpensive and readily available from stores like Michael’s and Dick Blick.
Freestyle Photography sells Hahnemuhle Platinum Rag, which both Anderson and Annettee Golaz (see below) mention as one of the best heavy papers for cyanotype.
Dick Blick sells Hahnemuhle Sumi-e, which both Anderson and Golaz say is an excellent lightweight paper.
Cyanotype books
Be warned: many of the books on cyanotype available online are self-published. I have doubts about whether they’re worth buying. But the following two books come from reputable publishers.
Cyanotype Toning: Using Botanicals To Tone Blueprints Naturally by Annette Golaz (Routledge, 2021), part of Routledge’s Contemporary Practices in Alternative Process Photography series, is an excellent introduction to toning cyanotype. It also an excellent chapter detailing the basic cyanotype process. It’s expensive — US$66.99 — but for me it was worth the price.
I haven’t yet seen Cyanotype: The Blueprint in Contemporary Practice by Christina Anderson (Focal Press, 2019), but Annette Golaz refers to it repeatedly in her book.
Cyanotype websites
Many of the cyanotype websites appear to be “AI”-generated slime. Others are too basic (“Expose the cyanotype paper, put it water, look at the result!”). But I found the following websites to be well worth a look.
Cyanotypes with plants
Cyanotype by Angela Chalmers, a PDF, gives instructions on making cyanotype photograms using plants. Great ideas, and the author’s photograms are gorgeous.
“How To Make Cyanotypes of Flowers” on the Nature TTL website includes very useful instructions on a specific form of wet cyanotype process.
A digitized version of Anna Atkins’s book of botanical cyanotypes is online at London’s Natural History Museum website. A scholarly article with an analysis of Atkins’s book from the point of view literary analysis can be found here.
Atlas Obscura has samples of a 12 year old’s botanical cyanotypes here. Interesting for educators to look at.
Cyanotype techniques
Toning can alter the bright blue color of cyanotypes. Jacquard has a guide to toning cyanotypes to produce various colors.
Vinegar-developed cyanotypes on the Alternative Photography website describes how to develop in vinegar so that your cyanotypes are less contrast-y. (N. B.: I haven’t gotten useful results using the vinegar process with the Lawrence Hall of Science Sunprint paper.) Alternative Photography has other articles on cyanotype, which I haven’t had time to explore yet.
Using artificial light to expose cyanotypes should lead to more consistent and predictable results. Photographer Steph Coffman has a page on her website detailing how she made cyanotypes indoors using a UV light box. She uses the Everbeam 50W 365nm wavelength UV flood light for a light source, and reports exposure times of 30-60 minutes. (Everbeam also makes the same light in a 100W version, which should result in shortened exposure times.) However, people on the cyanotype subreddit have gotten much shorter exposure times — one difference might be distance of light source from the paper (inverse square law), which also affects the size of paper you can use.
A photography teacher on Youtube shows how to make an even cheaper UV light box. She wound up with exposure times of about 12 minutes. She found one on eBay for $30, but the cheapest ones I could find on eBay are significantly more expensive (as of May, 2025).
The “Koraks Tinkers” blog has a post pointing out the difference between collimated vs. diffuse light when exposing cyanotypes. The post points out that direct sunlight provides collimated light, while an overcast day provides diffuse light. When exposing with artificial light, there will be a different between a point source and a bank of lights. This difference is less important when making contact prints from a negative, but will produce quite different results with 3-D objects.