From: Katharine Thayer (kthayer@pacifier.com)
Date: 11/12/01-04:57:29 AM Z
Keith Gerling wrote:
>
> Even when I'm looking for a softer look, I always use black to some degree.
> Without it, the print lacks "punch" (and I realize that a "punch-less" look
> is exactly what draws many people to gum printing - but not me.)
This is one of those issues that doesn't have a "right" answer: whether
to print tricolor or to add a black layer, and the slogan I've always
used here holds: "To each his own."
However, the assumption that those of us who don't see the need for
black like a print that lacks "punch" by which I assume you're saying
that we prefer a print that doesn't include a true black, is not quite
accurate, at least not in my case. I do often like to print a soft
unsaturated color print, when I do print tricolor (which is almost
never any more) but where I think black is called for, my tricolor
prints are quite black. Today I am going through slides and jpegs of
some of my gum prints to select images for a website I've promised to
contribute to (Yes, D, I AM working on it, even though it might not look
like it) and just for fun I looked at the histograms of some of my
tricolor work, to see if I've been kidding myself that you can get a
really dark black by printing tricolor. These are straight scans of
slides, with no autoexposure and no manipulation in photoshop. The
prints were shown and sold years ago so I can't compare the actual
prints to the electronic file, but using the slides as a gauge, I
believe that the scans are an accurate representation of the tonal range
in the actual print. In each case, the histogram shows a complete range
of tones, from 0% to 100% black.
kt
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