Re: Carbon

I remember the exchange from 1996 or 1997 about "letting the boy do
it." I don't, however, remember telling you at APIS in 2005 anything
about someone looking for the reference in BJ. Not saying that it did
not happen, only that I have no recollection of it at all.

Carbon is obviously a lot easier to work if you buy the tissue ready
made, and I always encourage beginners to buy the B&S stuff. The
color of the Autotype pigment made for photogravure is very ugly to
my eye.

I am curious as to why you would be having transfer. I have never had
any trouble sticking the image on fixed out fiber photographic
papers, and I have used dozens of different ones. Just plop the
tissue and paper in cool water for about thirty seconds, mate, drain
and squeegee together. Works every time for me.

Sandy

>Some years ago I commented on this list that in the 19C carbon
>printing was regarded as a job for 'the boy' in up market commercial
>photography studios. The comment had come from an 1890s British
>Journal of Photography Almanac I was subsequently led to believe
>that this had upset some people.
>
>One has to remember that carbon printing in this context implied an
>every day procedure using commercially available carbon tissue from.
>for example, the Autotype Company, rather than the more complicated
>procedure involved in making one's own tissue. But carbon tissue is
>still available commercially from the same Autotype company, if one
>is prepared to buy it by the mile and one accepts burnt sienna as
>the colour. It is easier, of course, to buy it from Dick Sullivan
>who has developed carbon tissue in different colours for the
>alternative processes market.
>
>Sandy King told me, at APIS in 2005 in Santa Fe, that someone had
>trawled through 19C BJs to find the 'easy' reference to carbon
>printing but could not find it. This morning, while browsing through
>a BJ from twenty years earlier, I found a reference from the issue
>of March 9 1877 where in a letter from Sir Thomas Parkyns, who had
>visited the studio of Mr Witcomb in Salisbury, Wiltshire, to see how
>easy it was to make carbon prints using the Autotype company's
>tissue, he found that 'A youth of sixteen years of age had
>management of the production of the prints' 'A young lady' had taken
>the negatives.' The prints were put in the printing frame at 10.55
>and Mr Witcomb delivered them to Sir Thomas by 12.12. The prints
>were judged successful. There was much fuss going on at the time as
>the Autotype patents were about to expire. Many were saying that the
>process was difficult to operate, Sir Thomas delivered fine carbon
>prints to the BJ's editorial offices where anyone could examine
>them, while a gentleman from Ceylon, where he was making 11 x 14
>enlargements in tropical conditions, pointed out that in order to
>get the process to work properly, all one had to do was follow the
>instructions.
>
>I have been using the Autotype tissue for many years transferring
>the image to Fabriano Artistico.
>Suddenly, I only seem to be able to transfer the image to fixed out
>RC paper. As the gentleman from Ceylon said in 1877, 'I will need to
>sort out the glitch".
>
>Terry King
Received on Mon May 1 00:11:32 2006