Re: digital negative possibilities for gum
Chris, what kind of bitmaps were you using, a halftone screen,
diffusion dither, or some other?
Katharine
On Oct 16, 2006, at 6:57 PM, Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
Good evening all,
Over the last week I have been testing four kinds of gum negs, with
tricolor
gum and gum over cyanotype (cyanogum). My goal was to see if
bitmapped negs produced clearer, more brilliant colors as I read
somewhere, or even worked with gum, and then to find an acceptable,
cheap, low tech beginner mode of gum printing.
I made sure to actually attach the negs side by side so all other
variables
were exactly alike--coating, dry time, development, etc.
So here's the skinny:
1. Trigum printed with a negative on cheapy Photo Warehouse OHP
transparency with all inks, no curves
2. Trigum printed with a negative on cheapy Photo Warehouse OHP
transparency with all inks, no curves, and bitmapped 360 ppi input and
output
3. Cyanogum printed with a negative printed on expensive
Pictorico, all
inks, no curves
4. Cyanogum printed with a negative printed on expensive
Pictorico, curved
correctly for cyanotype, magenta and yellow separately, colorized neg
These are my observations (NOT declarations or assertions); YRMV:
1. Bitmapping surprised me--it actually produced a pretty darn
good image!
It was softer, a bit less contrasty, but heck, with what little ink
bitmapping uses and with the fact you can use cheapy transparency,
it is
definitely a keeper,especially for teaching beginners low tech gum.
2. "All inks" was a bit smudgy and required drying with the PWOHP/
Epson
2400, not with Pictorico. Funny, my cyano layer printed with
minute round
spots of lighter tone--not the dreaded speckles--and when I louped the
negative I saw that the printer lays down minute round spots of
different
color inks that in turn expose cyano differently, like little mini
filters.
Very interesting. With gum this is no problem--the spottiness, of
course.
3. Cyanotype absolutely requires a curve--by the time the
highlights are
printed in, the shadows are totally overexposed unless your image
is short
scale to fit the 4 or 5 stops of that process's range. My next
test is to
curve just the cyano and use the two bitmap magenta and yellow negs
to print
gum over. And then next I will probably curve the individual negs
and then bitmap.
4. If not printing with a cyano underlayer, you can get an
acceptable
print with no curves, neg just inverted and printed as is, and
adjust the
layer with exposure, development, pigment load, brushing. But all
of you
already knew that, I'm sure I'll be told. I prefer the all inks
unbitmapped
to the bitmapped--I think.
5. In my eye the better print was produced by a properly curved neg,
but how will your viewer know there is a "better" rendition unless
all the
images are side by side, you know?
6. Bitmapping didn't produce clearer, better colors because of
"individual
dots laid down side by side and not on top of one another".
7. All methods can be capable of producing fine prints, once the
gum printer can meld his/her method to whatever workflow is chosen.
8. Bitmapping has....possibilities...I'm not sure what yet, but it
really did surprise me.
If you want to see the visual, copy and paste this URL into your
browser:
http://czaphotography.com/show.php?what=learning&which=1
and scroll down to the very bottom of the images; it'll be there.
Bye!
Chris
CZAphotography.com
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