My entry into printing: Botanical toning of Cyanotype

Blue was only the beginning. The print still had more to reveal through water, chemistry, and time.

When blue no longer felt enough

Right after returning from the UK and making my first cyanotype prints in India, I was eager to explore every possible variation within the process.

The blue itself fascinated me. Watching an image emerge slowly through chemistry, ultraviolet light, water, and time already felt transformative. Yet during my workshops in the UK, I also briefly encountered another layer of cyanotype printing: toning. Especially the botanical toning of Cyanotype.

At first, I was drawn to it visually. A toned cyanotype carried a completely different emotional quality. The image no longer remained only blue. It began shifting into layered browns, muted greys, warm sepias, and textured surfaces that almost resembled double-coated or aged prints. Certain toners deepened shadows. Certain ingredients softened the image. Others altered the tonal separation entirely. The print felt alive again, even after it had already been completed once- it fascinated me.

Returning to coffee and tea

The first toners I tried after coming back from the UK were coffee and tea. I remembered experimenting with them during the workshops, and I wanted to recreate those same rich, earthy tones in my own print lab. I prepared the cyanotype prints carefully and began toning them, expecting familiar results.

But the prints behaved differently. The tones appeared inconsistent, muddy, and weak. At first, I assumed the issue was exposure or paper. Later, I realized the problem was the coffee itself.

I had unknowingly used chicory coffee. Chicory is widely consumed across the states of Southern India, especially in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, where filter coffee often contains a significant amount of chicory blended with coffee powder. Growing up here, I had always enjoyed that flavor without questioning it, the nutty bitterness and density felt familiar to me.

But cyanotype chemistry responded differently. The chicory altered the toning process and prevented the prints from achieving the tonal richness I was seeking. That was when I understood that the process demanded precision, even in the smallest decisions.

I slowly began experimenting with different coffee beans and direct coffee extracts, observing how each variation shifted the final image differently. And once again, cyanotype taught me that chemistry exists everywhere. 

Discovering botanical toning

As my curiosity grew, I moved beyond coffee and tea. I began experimenting with fenugreek, black jeera, clove, green tea, and pomegranate peel. Each ingredient behaved differently. Each carried its own texture, depth, and tonal response. The process no longer felt like simple printing- it began to feel closer to alchemy.

I started to understand that toning was not only about changing color. It was a changing atmosphere. The same image could carry an entirely different emotional weight depending on the toner used, and among all the ingredients I explored, pomegranate peel stuck with me the most.

The depth of the pomegranate peel

Pomegranate peel toning transformed my cyanotypes in a way I had not anticipated. The tones shifted into rich, earthy browns with grain-like textures that felt organic and aged. Portraits responded beautifully to it, temple structures and heritage images gained a depth that reminded me of older handcrafted prints.

Even landscapes and architectural frames carried a distinct tactile quality under that tone. What fascinated me most was the texture itself- Pomegranate peel contains tannic acid, and despite repeated boiling and preparation, it never dissolved completely into the liquid. I filtered the solution repeatedly using mesh cloth and coffee filters, trying to remove every remaining particle. And still, traces remained.

Earlier, I might have treated that as a flaw, but when the print emerged, those subtle inconsistencies gave the image character. The grain-like surface, the uneven density, the warmth within the brown tones — all of it felt deeply connected to the handmade nature of the process.

I loved the results so much that I immediately created four additional prints from the same series. Two of them now remain framed.

When the print unexpectedly turned purple

Another turning point came through green tea. I experimented with a lemon-honey flavored green tea, approaching the process the same way I had approached the others. The preparation felt routine by then.

But gradually, I noticed the print shifting toward a deep purple tone. At first, I simply observed it. Then I began researching. That was when I discovered how strongly water chemistry affects cyanotype toning. Hard or alkaline water can dramatically alter the outcome, especially when ingredients containing citric acid or ascorbic acid are introduced.

The paper itself also influenced the result. Hot-pressed and cold-pressed papers reacted differently. Pre-coated papers behaved differently from freshly coated sheets. Even a slight imbalance in the ratio of ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide altered the final print.

I realized that cyanotype toning was not a fixed formula; it was a conversation between chemistry, paper, water, coating, humidity, timing, and the organic nature of the ingredient itself.

The patience hidden inside the process

The deeper I moved into toning, the slower the process became. There were long hours spent coating papers, preparing botanical solutions, filtering ingredients, exposing prints under UV light, washing them repeatedly, drying them carefully, and waiting to see how the tones finally settled.

Many nights stretched well past midnight. At times, I would continue working until three in the morning, moving from print to print, observing small differences between exposures, papers, and toners.

And strangely, I never felt exhausted by it, but the process felt therapeutic. There was a certain calmness in watching the image transform gradually, layer after layer, tone after tone. Cyanotype had already taught me patience through exposure and development. Toning deepened that lesson further.

When mistakes become part of the print

After repeated experimentation, I slowly stopped trying to control every outcome. Certain prints behaved unexpectedly, and certain tones reacted differently than planned. At times, the image I intended to create disappeared completely, only to reveal another version I had not anticipated, and many of those accidental results became my favorite prints.

That changed the way I understood the process. I realized that not every variation needed correction. Not every deviation was a mistake. The unpredictability itself carried beauty because it made each print impossible to repeat exactly. No two-toned cyanotypes truly felt identical, and perhaps that uniqueness was what kept drawing me deeper into the process.

Beyond blue

Today, cyanotype toning no longer feels like an experiment to me. It feels like an extension of the photograph itself. The image continues evolving long after exposure. Chemistry keeps interacting with paper, water, light, and time. Every toner leaves behind traces of its own character, shaping the photograph differently and through that process, I began understanding that printing is not only about preserving an image- It is also about allowing it to transform.

My next exploration now moves toward gum over cyanotype, layering processes over one another and continuing this conversation between image, material, and time- because the deeper I move into alternative printing, the more I realize that the photograph is never truly finished. It only continues changing form.