A lot more difficult though.
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I know that we have been down this road before but making a single
transfer carbon print from ready made tissue is, if one is methodical
about it, easy. That is in comparison with polaroid transfer. The relative
difficulty comes when you try to make your own tissue. But even then care
and patience will produce passable results if one is interested in the
achievement of having made one. The materials are cheap and readily
available, examples are lining paper, gelatine and powder paint. Making
four colour carbon prints to a consistently high standard for professional
use is a whole new ball game involving difficuties of a different order of
magnitude.
The carbon tissue being manufactured today, as with materials for so many
'alternative' processes, is made for another purpose, in this case, the
gravure printing industry, and even this process is obsolescent and the
amount manufactured today is very small compared with what was made only a
few years ago. The tissue can be bought for about fifty pounds a roll from
Autotype but it should be kept in the freezer if not used in more than a
few weeks. In classes students get enthusiastic so that a small roll is
used up fairly quickly.
I use Autotype's gravure tissue, which comes in one colour, burnt sienna,
for gravure and for single carbon transfer, which will produce prints of
great tonal range and subtlety of gradatiion. I like the colour; others do
not.
Terry King