Jan van Dijk (janvdijk@bart.nl)
Wed, 16 Jun 1999 13:26:36 +0200
Lippmann images can not be scanned directly, because it is based on light
interference both during exposing (for a very long time) and for viewing
after developing the extreme thin silverchloride emulsion. (The colour is
formed by light interference in the "Zanker plates", which are formed during
exposure).
So to print a Lippmann in say 4-colour offset, you have to make a
transparency first under special lighting conditions.
That will greatly reduce the colour accuracy (pigments have different
spectrum caracteristics than interference colours).
Besides, the 5 Lippmann pictures I have seen are not so colour accurate as
is always suggested. They have the hologramlook colours (some faint) and can
only be viewed correcly with the same light and from the same angle as the
exposing light (Around 1900 they had special viewers, even in stereo).
Reproducing interference colours is impossible in print (unless you print
with Zankerlike plates; like hologram printing).
To show how difficult even ordenairy colour reproduction can be because of
the many practical variables, I will mention some of them:
I have seen spectral colour analyses of all kinds of subjects, including
human skin, different light sourses, pigments, etc. The spectra is very
complicated and can not be reproduced by 3 colours alone. All efforts can
only result in a mere imitation. Reproducing them in spite of all (I made
professional reproductions for more than 15 years for famous artists) is
depending among others on your light source, refectors, film (format, made,
size,etc.), developing, dyes being used, etc, etc. The 5x7 Ektachromes I
made around 1980 were good reproductions of paintings, because I took in
acount as many variables as were possible at that time (made more than 100
tests), including different lenses, tungsten/daylight, partly polarising the
light. (For Dutch reading people: see my article in the 1981 Encyclopedie
Fotografie Elsevier onder trefwoord schilderijen fotograferen).
So ordinary colour reproduction is difficult and reproducing Lippmann is
even more difficult and extremely difficult to reproduce in print.
Jan van Dijk.
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Carl Fransman <salto@salto.be>
Aan: Alt Photo <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Datum: woensdag 16 juni 1999 11:35
Onderwerp: Re: Color reproduction
>>Somehow the name of the Lippmann process keep popping up. Can these
>images be scanned?
>
>Greetings,
>
>Carl Fransman
>SALTO
>Printing & Lithography
>BELGIUM
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu Oct 28 1999 - 21:39:37