Re: AtAttn Dick + All. re Clarification of Woodburytype,Photo Polymer and Carbon Transfer.
Aniere was using the photopolymer to make both the matrix and the
printing plate. The polymer was used to get a relief instead of the
gelatin. He was not using as it was intended. And from this he made some
prints directly from the polymer plate. No press was involved. BTW,
Aniere is a great cook! (Ok, he's French, so that must be it!)
Woodbury was used primarily as a commercial photomechanical process. One
could make 20 impressions from a gelatin matrix in lead and solder them
up gang-wise to make a sheet of 20 4x5 on a 20x25 inch sheet and then
cut them apart for tipping into books. My guess it was far too expensive
a process to survive needing the press and all. Tipping in was not
economical and other halftone processes were invented that allowed
printing on the same page along with the type.
At issue though, is the fact that photomechanical is neither fish not
fowl and seems to get ignored by photo historians because it's not
"photography." Printmakers and their historians ignore it because it is
"photography" and not really "art." I have book I am going to scan and
republish in facsimile format called Horgan on Halftone (c. 1905) which
is falling apart (all copies I seen are disentigrating and besides are
also quite rare) since it was printed on awful wood pulp paper. It
documents a dozen or more photomechanical processes which have since
died out because they would not print more than a couple of thousand
copies, however, enough for an artistic process. The descriptions of the
process are terse and brief so some re-invention is needed. I am calling
this my Dead Sea project.
--Dick
John Grocott wrote:
*Dick, *
*From what you say, here, it looks as if it may be possible
to equate Woodburytype, which uses a liquid pigmented gelatine ,
pressed into a mould, and confuse it with Photopolymer Gravure,
which makes the print with etching ink being rolled by an etching
press from a plate such as Toyoba onto the support paper. The two
processes seem to be widely different. Woodburytype appears to be more
similar in its results and appearance to Carbon Transfer. The process
is vastly different.*
**
* Did you mean that Gerard may have been trying to press liquid
pigmented gelatine from the Photopolymer plate onto the support paper,
or what ? *
* *
* Then, would you classify Carbon Transfer as a
photomechanical process ? Apparently, Woodburytype was used
mainly for mass commercial reproduction publications.*
**
*I am contacting Gerard Aniere, who I know personally, to check
whether what you surmise has any substance. I could never imagine
that Metro would have invested in something like a Woodburytype press
which pressed the gelatine pigment into a lead mould which
then squashes/ transfers the gelatine pigment from the mould to a
paper support. *
**
* The enormous pressure from the press was in the forming of the mould
and not in the transfering of the gelatine pigment to the paper. *
*...................................................................................*
*_From the 1890 encyclopaedia :-_*
**
*'' A photomechanical process of extreme beauty standing appart from
all other photo-mechanical processes, from the fact that it is the
only one which faithfully reproduces the half-tones of the picture.
Notwithstanding the fact that many unscrupulous persons have laid
claim to the invention of this process, it is undoubtedly the
outcome of the inventive genius of the late W.B.Woodbury, and to which
he gave his name. No one, on reading the description of this process
and its apparent simplicity, could imagine the ammmount of time or
labour spent on its perfection by the inventor, who has been rightly
termed *
*'' The Caxton of Photography''.*
**
*The Woodburytype, although much worked in this and other countries,
is most confined to a few firms, owing, probably, to the considerable
expense required in the purchase of the necessary plant. For this
reason Woodbury devised a simple process, very similar, which he
called the Stannotype, but owing to the usual mismanagement of a
limited company formed to work it, it did not meet with the success it
deserved.''*
**
* _STANNOTYPE _( Latin. stannum - tin and English - type )*
*This process may be termed a simplified Woodbury process. On
reference to a description of the latter , it will be found that one
of the principal requirements is a costly hydrolic press, with which
to form the printing mould by pressing the gelatine relief into the
lead surface.*
* The object of the STANNOTYPE process was to do
away with this costly machinery, and bring the process within the
reach of all. A careful consideration of the principles involved in
the Woodbury process will show that if a gelatine relief were produced
from a positive instead of a negative, this relief would serve as the
printing mould in the same manner as the impressed lead, were it not
for one serious drawback, and that is, that being of gelatine it would
be destroyed when it received the necessary wetting.*
* This drawback was overcome by Woodbury after a long course of
labourious experiments by a most simple expedient. It was simply by
protecting the relief by a sheet of tinfoil, pressed well into contact
with it.*
**
*----- Original Message ----- *
*From: "Richard Sullivan" <**richsul@earthlink.net*
<mailto:richsul@earthlink.net>*>*
*To: <**alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca*
<mailto:alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>*>*
*Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 3:45 PM*
*Subject: Re: The Woodburytype and Stannotype Processes*
**
*>I believe it was the Gerard Aniere who was working with the
Woodbury. He
> worked with William Ingram at Metro in London. Metro was a big graphics
> firm and set up a shop in the basement for mostly platinum printing. If
> I remember he was using photopolymer plates as a both a matrix and
> printing plate. His results were intriguing but I think he had gone as
> far as the material would take him.*
*.........................................................................*
* Barret Oliver's book may offer some way of making the
Woodbury process even more available than Stannotype was.*
**
* Regards*
*John - Photographist - London - UK*
*
*
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