Retooling The System ~ Changing Printers

Honesty tends to be a luxury these days, but being a serial confessor I just bring things into the open for review by all. Dicey at times yet refreshing. I have been blogging for two years on hand coating processes and techniques, mostly because it is something I love and hope will continue well after I'm gone. I didn't change my mind on that front. What has to change is the method for arriving at a usable negative to make the prints I'm showing on this page. That has always been the traditional ink jet printed negative from a thousand dollar printer. Not to happen. Turns out, I did come to realize that the $89 Kodak 3250 printer I bought for my wife to print reference images for her watercolors. That printer has a paper type setting <acetate film> and let me tell you, it does that so well.

After a number of years of printing with that printer, the printer head is wearing out, leaving very subtle streaks on the negative, and of course that shows up in the print. That won't due. The gum over palladium prints I am producing at this time take time to make, not the go into the darkroom for an afternoon and if you make a mistake in a print you can make another one and have it done in an hour. These prints take a week to make, at minimum. Depending on how many color print layers desired it can take up to two weeks to finalize a gum over palladium print. There are two different print images going on, process wise, one over the other. Don't likely need to mention what happens if anything gets out of registration or a coating error occurs. Tossing a finished or nearly finished print that took two weeks to make, is more painful than words convey.

The change I have to make, to retain any sanity, is changing over to laser printed negatives, on laser acetate sheets, not ink jet overhead projection acetate sheets, referred to as acetate film. There is more than one brand of those sheets. Laser printers also work at 600 dpi, not the 300 dpi of ink jet printers. What does show up in the making of the negative is how each type of printer reads the digital image. The same digital image will make two different looking negatives, altering the contrast index curve and density range on the printed negative. I learned this a few hours ago, when I ventured to the print shop I use to print my tri-copy certificates of authenticity. I was told they can print to acetate. Indeed they can, and the nice lady understands what I am after, printing a negative from an image of my choice on the thumb drive.

The results of that interchange can be seen below. I got a straight up laser printed negative of the images I took her, the very images that print perfectly to a negative on my printer, resulting in a 10 minute print time which is a very inspiring finished print. Same digital image laser printed to acetate then printed as a Kallitype (acetate developer) and palladium toned, demands almost twice the print time, and then remains too contrasty. To print down the highlights prints down the middle tones and black shadowed areas, by almost a stop. Knowing that means I will be able to restructure the images to conform to those new variables.

What can be seen is the image is not fully printed in, leaving a sort of hazy look to the overall image. There will be several color layers of gum printed over this image. For this particular image to show the colors reflective of what would be expected, will take six color layers to demonstrate what I have in mind. Could be ten. But first, the image needs to be printed correctly, whereupon the woman's dress is printed in to show the textural detail that it has, as well as bringing down the zone 8 (pure white) of the cat's fur. Then the color layers are applied. Soon, now that I know laser printed negatives work. Stay tuned.

First Test Print ~ Laser Printed Negative
Palladium toned Kallitype ~ 15 minute print time ~ This negative needs 3-4 more minutes print time
"Two Friends" ~ 8x10