Tod Gangler (artandsoul@mindspring.com)
Tue, 27 Jul 1999 15:25:13 -0700
Dear Dave S,
When carbon printing, each step (and each transfer) is a potential place to
ruin a print. Single-transfer printing involves fewer steps, so it may be
easier and more successful. The processed carbon pigment emulsion exhibits
great relief, being thinner in the highlights and thicker in the shadows.
The light-hardening of the emulsion starts from the surface of the pigment
tissue, where it is in contact with your negative, and extends downward to
varying depths. When this emulsion is transfered to a hardened final
support paper, the original surface of the pigment tissue is now on the
bottom, and the variable-depth part of the exposed emulsion is now up,
revealing the greatest amount of relief and texture in the print.
Double transfer printing involves processing the pigment emulsion on a
sheet of plexiglass, vinyl or prepared mylar. These materials exhibit
great dimensional stability, so successive emulsions may be built up one at
a time, and in precise registration for color work, for example. The
completed image of many emulsion layers is then transfered to a sheet of
receiving paper. This paper must have a soft gelatin size coating to
receive the relief of the image, and this finished print does exhibit less
relief than the single transfer print. What was the original surface of
the pigment emulsion at the time of exposure is now back to being on top
again.
To accomplish print-making with multiple emulsion layers, in registration,
and still get the most relief, one may resort to triple transfer printing.
In this case the image will be built up on vinyl, plex or prepared mylar,
transfered next to paper with a soft gelatin size, and then transfered
again to a final support paper with a hard gelatin size.
Luis Nadeau's excellent texts on carbon printing will give you more
information about all of these printing scenarios. I usually use a double
transfer approach as I print UltraStable in color, in pin register, and it
doesn't provide quite as much relief as a traditional carbon pigment
emulsion sensitized with dichromate (i.e. a triple transfer UltraStable
print doesn't give much more relief than a double transfer one.) Printing
first onto a temporary support also gives me great repeatability in print
processing.
Good luck!
Tod G
>I am reading about carbon printing and might give it a try soon (if the
>weather permits), but I still don't quite understand the purpose of double
>transfer.
>Dave S
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