Shutterbug57 wrote:
As 2018 comes to a close, what are the best retouching dyes available for B&W darkroom work? I appreciate the input of the group.
I assume the OP is referring to spotting (there are other kinds of retouching).
SpoTone was good, but no longer available. It was made by the Retouching Methods Co, Inc
of Chatham, NJ.
Marshall's Spot-All does the job. They come in at least five colors: Neutral black, blue black,
selenium brown, brown and olive.
Spot-All is manufactured by the American company BKA (Brandness-Kalt-Aetna), which also
took over manufacturing Edwal products in 2004 (from Falcon Safety Products).. The Spot-All
line is said to have been designed for both RC and fiber paper and tested extensively.
Other brand that is available, but less common, are Diaphoto and Fotospeed. Haven't tried them.
SpoTone turned out to be permanent (at least after 80 years = 2018 - 1938). Let's hope that SpotAll
will too. Time will tell.
The good news is that a bottle of spotting liquid still costs much less than a good brush.
It's worth buying a good, very fine, camel hair brush (or Kolinsky sable, if you do a lot of spotting
and can afford it). I use a humble syntehtic sable/real sable blend made by Winsor & Newton:
"Septre Gold II" round, size 000. It's a bit stiffer than real sable but holds the dye and keeps a good point.
Works for me.