Inkjet negs and gum prints

Henry Rattle (Henry.Rattle@port.ac.uk)
Sat, 28 Feb 1998 19:33:33 +0000

It certainly seems possible to produce good negs for gum printing using the
Epson 600/800 printers. You need to select the transparency materials
carefully - some have a rough starchy coating, but others are quite smooth
and even. The ones I used were from a local office store and are made by
Boeder in Germany.

Just to give it a try, I scanned a 7"x5" colour print at 360 dpi into
Photoshop. After cleaning up one or two intrusive objects (twigs etc) and
adjusting contrast, I printed 10"x8" CMYK colour separations onto the
transparencies at 720 dpi. There seemed to be a very good density range,
and I used them for four-colour gum on Bockingford paper (cadmium yellow,
Winsor blue, alizarin crimson and neutral tint), with results that I quite
like. The paper shrinks about 1% with the first wash, so needs to be
prewashed before the first colour coat to maintain registration.
Punch-and-pin registration was used - punching all four transparencies
together makes registration easy.

It doesn't feel like "pure" photography, but the prints are nice, and it is
a lot of fun!

best wishes,

Henry Rattle