[...]
>
> well, why not try the new photo-polymer gravyre? it is 1000 times easier
> than old copper-plate gravure, and uses a non-toxic chemical named aqua
> (although nowadays water could be regarded as not too healthy, couldn't it
> ;-) The procedure is simple - make a positive film, contact-print it with
> the polymer-base and then contact print a raster film - the finer the
> raster, the less dots you'll get in the final print, which is printed the
> same way than copper plates (in a press). The process is fairly new, but
> it si being researched here in Finland at the University of Industial
> Arts, on the photography department, and there is a book on it (in
> Finnish). If you need more details + material sources info I could try to
> look them up for you, I took the course last spring, and it was easy, and
> you could use the plate up to 1000 times (compared to 5-6 in
> old-fashioned gravure) not to mention that the prints looked just about
> the same or better than copper-gravures. Has anyone else tried this method?
I look forward to learning more about this process (though not enough
to learn Finnish :-). I just want to correct one statement about
copper-plate gravures.
An unfaced copper plate is probably good for 70-80 prints before there
is noticable degradation of the image (not that I've ever printed any
plate that much - even the thought is exhausting).
You can steel plate copper to get (according to the literature) many
times that number of prints. I've actually steel plated a copper
gravure plate as an experiment and it isn't that hard.
Please let us know when the photo-polymer process becomes available
outside of Finland.
Carson Graves
carson@ileaf.com