The ones I have seen were lith type images or had coarse screens. Pretty
crummy for continuous tone images
>those cemetery portraits may have been carbon transfers.
For a long time the best process was one of the dusting-on variations,
although Autotype produced a ceramic carbon transfer paper until the 1950s
>
>And the process, by the way, is still in use, at least by one
>little-old-artisan in Paris. NYC photographer Josef Astor discovered him
>(I mean he knew he was there, but we didn't, right?)
*I* did;-)
>and was so intrigued
>he managed to learn to do the process...with help from a potter, he said,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If the help had come from that little old artisan in Paris I would have
been surprised... I simply expressed my curiosity regarding the techniques
they used and the lady (well, the woman) behind the counter made it very
clear that diplomacy and Dale Carnegy were not part of her intellectual
accoutrement;-)
Why can't they simply say "non" like everybody else?
The smell in the place indicated that they were probably using a technique
that made use of collodion transfers. The quality was comme ci comme ca at
best and I had the feeling that they may have been using a shortcut in the
process and exposed a film upside down (emulsion away from a duplicate neg)
as they were very soft. Nothing there to write home about. Some of my
readers have sent me much better images on flat tiles and cups that are
much superior and these methods will be detailed in my upcoming _History
and Practice of Photoceramic Processes_ which, ehhh was supposed to come
out in 1990 I think...
It does look like it will come out before this coming summer, thanks to my
accomplices in Paris and Germany who have been sending me tons of stuff to
study and translate. What is holding this project now is the documentation
on "new" materials not yet available in North America.
In the meantime anxious experimenters may want to check the comprehensive
bibliography in the Encyclopedia of Printing, etc.
BTW, if anyone on this list I have not been in touch with already, has
**excellent** photoceramics, do contact me offlist please.
Luis Nadeau
awef6t@mi.net
nadeaul@nbnet.nb.ca
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
http://www.micronet.fr/~deriencg/nadeau.html
http://www.primenet.com/~dbarto/lnadeau.html#A0