crummy printers and gum

This week, I decided to test my old Epson Stylus 660 printer and see if it
would print out halfway decent negatives for gum. My Epson 2200 is back in
SC (sob!) and I am here with this crappy piece of work for 3 months. I
brought 30 negs with me, but you know...there's always one more you want to
do (can't wait to show this to Sam, heheheh--nude in landscape a la Chris
Anderson....).

The printer is maybe a $100 jobbie, very kindergartenish printer driver.
The negatives came out pale and bluish, and next to the 2200 negatives were
a joke.

My first printing with them of a cyano layer was unusable. I was going to
throw them away, but decided to print them in a layer of gum at my usual 4
minute/*low dilution* am di time. Still unusable--almost completely blocked
up and no contrast.

This time I saw the obvious, which I usually miss (as with the hair
dryer/brush thingie) and decided to cut time drastically, and exposed them
for 1 or 2 minutes instead-- realizing contrast changes with exposure.

Not only did they work, but they look really pretty good! So those of you
with aging, cheapy printers and no $700 for a 2200, it is not a lost cause.

Last summer I could never get this printer to make suitable negatives even
with using a very dramatic contrast curve, because I was using saturated
ammonium dichromate--way too powerful for crummy negatives that don't lay
down enough ink. I remember someone once saying a year or two or three ago
that gum "laughed at" the density in a digineg. This is what happened to
me, too. With the lower dilution (1 tsp pigment mix which is a 14ml tube of
pigment in 50 ml gum + 1 tsp gum arabic + 1 1/2 tsp water + 1/2 tsp
saturated ammonium dichromate) they work.

I thought I'd report this while thinking of Don Bryant struggling with
making suitable negs for kallitype. Gum is so much more flexible because
you print layer upon layer, so you don't have to rely on one perfect
exposure :) One more reason GUM ROCKS!

HEYYY! Don, any reason you couldn't double print a kalli??
Chris
Received on Fri May 28 08:34:33 2004