Re: Three tricolor prints

[Katharine Thayer <kthayer@pacifier.com>]

On Oct 16, 2007, at 11:19 AM, Jacek wrote:


> Hi Katharine,
>
> Just an idea and not so sure if its worth even trying out? If you  
> were to take 3 of the seperation negatives and Gum print them  
> individually on 3 different sets of your favourite paper. Then scan  
> each gum print, you'd have to grey scale each one and then add each  
> channel to a new photoshop RGB file. So what would turn out? A full  
> colour image...though would it be anything like the original  
> digital image from where it came, in regards with hue, saturation,  
> colour, brightness, contrast? Would this be a tool in troubleshooting?
> I know there is another mode in Photoshop, CMYK selective colour or  
> MultiChannel, where you can set the colour channel to what you  
> want, don't know if that helps?
Umm, no... why in the world would I want to do something like that?   
I think you may be missing the point here, if there's a point:  it's   
not about how to perfect the process but that IMO, if anything,   
people make way too much of the curves thing.  Adding more levels of  
complexity to the process as you suggest would be in the opposite  
direction from the direction I'd encourage people to take, which is  
to be more relaxed about gum, to understand that it's not as hard as  
people try to make it, to stop fussing and fiddling with the curves  
and Photoshop aspect of it and JUST PRINT GUM!    My point was that  
you're going to get the same colors no matter what curves you use, as  
long as your pigments are reasonably balanced; the only difference  
will be in the values (shades) of the colors, not the hue ranges.  No  
matter what curves you use, the bananas should still be yellow; her  
hat should still be red, was my point. Refining the calibration  
wasn't the point.  I know how to do that.  The point was simply to  
put a close parentheses on that earlier discussion.



> Can I ask what your printing on (Transparency+Printer)?
Sure.  The printer is Epson 1280; the transparency I don't know; it's  
whatever I get from filmsource.com, as recommended to me by a friend  
on this list.  I call them and they ask "Do you want what you had  
before?"  I say yes, and except for one time when they sent me  
something else, I get the same thing I had before.  It works well and  
is very cheap, but I have no idea what it is.



> Also if you do muliple coats for each colour to build them up?
No, my tricolor gums, with few exceptions to this date are exactly  
that:  three layers of gum, period.

Thanks for the conversation,
Katharine