There have been two elements plaguing the progress of the palladium portfolio. The more recent one being a rare spate of rain clouds hanging about like miscreants around the corner magazine shop. Until I can modify the UV printer, dropping the printing distance by six inches, I have gone back to sun printing, which works for me. I've fabricated the translucent acrylic sheet to slip oer the print frame and stay in place rather nicely, now I await the sun for use.
The second, and more pressing and longer running problem has been printing negatives that can stand up to direct sunlight during printing, even with a defuser. By some stroke of luck, perhaps the Trickster was just in the right mood, perhaps it was simple karma, I found an Epson 1430 (13"x19" printer online for just over $400. Those printers have become rare and hard to locate and when you do they're $850 to $1000. Short of the story being it is now on its way to my house. My negatives will now not only be far superior to what I was getting but I will now be able to print 12"x19" negatives. Pictorico sells that size acetate. Now that makes the printing juices flow freely.
There will be precious little printing until the new printer is functioning. What will get my focus until then is the book on palladium printing. There will be a section on lighting and how to best utilize it. The defuser is a very good way to print in full sun without having to have an extremely dense negative. One can use a negative of Log 1.2 and get very good results. Stay tuned.
