Re: Back-exposing on plastic

On Apr 17, 2006, at 8:44 PM, etienne garbaux wrote:

> Katharine wrote:
>
>
>> But I don't understand where this transfer business is going, all of
>> a sudden, because I thought that Marek had demonstrated that you can
>> get a better tonal scale with gum by exposing from the back
>>
>
> I don't think it's anything terribly obtuse, just that many folks
> would
> like a gum print on paper with a full (and continuous) tonal scale
> (as can
> apparently be gotten by exposing through the substrate), and not
> everyone
> (apparently) has given up on persuading an exposed and developed
> gum layer
> to release from its plastic substrate. I'm not sure I see any
> advantage to
> gum transfer over gelatin transfer (i.e., carbon transfer), but I'm
> prepared to be amazed when someone does something with it that
> can't be
> done with carbon.
>

And so am I, obviously, but I think you've missed my point entirely.
We seem to agree that it's by exposing through the substrate that one
can get this full and continuous tonal scale that we've all been
excited about, including myself (although I have not yet been able to
replicate it in spite of working on it the entire day) but the
transfer method Marek attempted today and the method Dave was
recommmending requires, apparently, exposing from the top. Since
one can get a better image exposing from the top directly onto paper
than you can get exposing from the top onto plastic, my question is,
what would be the advantage to transferring a less fully tonal image
to paper than you could get by printing directly onto paper in the
first place? That was my point.

Katharine Thayer
Received on Mon Apr 17 22:36:28 2006