Re: digital negatives for cyanotype

Steve Avery (stevea@sedal.usyd.edu.AU)
Tue, 23 Apr 1996 17:42:09 +1000

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> Now I'm working on four ways to combine digitally processed images (I
> hate the word manipulated! It doesn't fit in art.)
> They are palladium, photo-gravure (polymere or copper I don't know
> yet), three-colour gum and CMYK ultra-stable (pigment printing).

I'm also doing Ultrastable, and having success. It helps that I own a
company with a very high end drum scanner and imagesetter. We have
however been having slight problems with transfers to a rag stock. What
has been your experience?

> I made a series of digitally processed pictures on cyanotype.
> The negatives were printed on a AGFA photosetter (1200/2400dpi) set to
> print 2400 dpi. I used a simple ditheration (900dpi) as screening. Why
> 900dpi? Well, that seemed to be the finest print that the photosetter
> could produce without loosing too much tones in the highlights.
> The photosetter was set on 2400dpi to get a smaller dot.

I think the dithering method (Burkholder's method) is the wrong way to
go. We've had good success printing a very high line screen with
conventional screening or stochastic screening (Linotype Hell Diamond
screening). I've produced digital negatives for Platinum/Plad.,
Cyanotypes, and of course pigment transfer. (My next project will
involve Dye transfer) I guess that is what makes this craft interesting
- people trying to accomplish the same thing differently!

Randy Green (RGREEN@MUSEX.COM)
Muse X Editions