U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Polymer Plate: was Gravure Pigment Tissue was Fwd: RE: Klaus Pollmeie

Polymer Plate: was Gravure Pigment Tissue was Fwd: RE: Klaus Pollmeier

Loris & Jalo,

Last Winter I purchased an American French Tool press and began experimenting with the Toyobo PrinTight KM73 photo-polymer plates —it has been both a fun and a fascinating experience.  I just got back from teaching in Santa Fe/Albuquerque and while in Santa Fe attended APIS—and showed some of the prints I made with this process.

Obviously they are a different animal than copper photogravure plates, with a very different workflow to create them.  They also differ in how they can be hand worked.  I am not advocating for them over the traditional copper plate method.  I hope that Dick Sullivan or someone is successful in making tissue available so that the traditional method can continue to be practiced—it would be a terrible loss.

I don't yet know how many prints can be pulled from a polymer plate compared to a traditional copper plate—especially one that has been steel faced.  I think that has yet to be proven—but certainly enough to handle the smaller editions that most people do.  It will probably be the folks doing commercial printing for others, that will suffer the most if a new tissue is not produced.

Given the above, I think the primary drawback is that the Polymer plates can be scratched.  I am sure that properly hardening them helps avoid this, but I think you just have to be careful with them to avoid micro-scratches in the lighter print tones when inking and wiping.

When using the two exposure method, with an aquatint screen, these plates are capable of making very high quality prints, with great detail and very smooth tones.  I cannot help compare them with Platinum/Palladium printing, my other favorite alt process, and I am getting very very close to the same detail and smoothness in tonal transitions.  As far as tonality, the last calibration I did printed 25 steps (log 2.5) on a 31 step tablet, which is more than my usual 2s mix of Na2 & Palladium prints.  Quite interesting to me, the same % contrast curve produced by Curve Calculator II for polymer produces a print identical to the same % contrast curve for platinum/palladium.  Side by side, you cannot tell the prints apart except for the plate mark.  By seeing this, I don't mean that the two mediums should or need to look alike.

I have done some consulting with Paul Taylor of Renaissance press and Willis F. Lewis of Santa Fe, both master photogravurists.  I have given them both a print and the original plate so they could print them themselves on their press and handle them just like a copper plate and they have both been extremely impressed with the results.  In fact, I spent a couple of days with Willis in his studio and watched him print one of my plates—I will be doing the same with Paul Taylor this fall.  They both feel that it is impossible to tell the difference between the polymer and traditional prints—if anything, the results from the polymer looks a little smoother to them.  They like it enough to have decided to take it up at least for smaller editions of their work.  The traditional work that Paul and Willis are doing is really beautiful.

I think that one of the biggest variables is the aquatint screen used to make the polymer plates.  I have been doing a lot of work on that and have about 24 screen variations here to test now.  The screen makes a huge difference in the appearance of the print and the calibration.  Once I finish these tests, I think I will be able to improve my printmaking further.

On Aug 18, 2009, at 12:55:56 AM, "Loris Medici" <mail@loris.medici.name> wrote:

From:"Loris Medici" <mail@loris.medici.name>
Subject:RE: Gravure Pigment Tissue was Fwd: RE: Klaus Pollmeier
Date:August 18, 2009 12:55:56 AM CDT
To:alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Yes, I was about mentioning it... It's not the end, you can still make use
of your equipment.

BUT, photopolymer gravure and copper plate gravure are different in my
understanding:

- With the classic method, you have a malleable / hand workable plate in
case you want to introduce hand work.
- Steel faced copper plates can give you longer print runs. (?)
- You have more plate choices; copper, zinc or steel... Each will give
different / intrinsic results.
- You can get more detail and tones (almost continuous tone) from the
classic method. (?)

- ... What else according to you all? (And please correct me where I'm
wrong.)

I'm not strictly sure about the lines marked with (?)...

Regards,
Loris.

________________________________

From: ender100 [mailto:ender100@aol.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 6:14 AM
To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Subject: Re: Gravure Pigment Tissue was Fwd: RE: Klaus Pollmeier


Marty, 
If all else fails, you might try Polymer Plate Photogravure.