Laser printer negs instead of inkjet negs for alt processes

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I've been printing digital negs with my Canon Pro-100 inkjet printer for about a year now. The inks are expensive. Sometimes I don't print for a while and the inks dry out. I'm thinking about experimenting with laser printer negs. I have a bunch of letter size OHP transparency film that I want to make negs from. My first guess is that laser printers don't offer a high enough resolution for alt processes. But on the other hand, I would think toner would block UV light more effectively. Has anybody tried making laser printer negs?

 

[removed account4]

hey !

funny you should post this ... i have been making paper negative for a few years now
get them made through my local xerox shop.
there is a fellow ( james harr) who postes and has a video on flickr (cyanotype group )
uses a laser printer and recently posted a tricolor gum over made wtih waxed laser paper negatives
im not sure if you have ever heard of "chart throb" the program kevin bjorke wrote
if you haven't found it its on his botzilla website http://www.botzilla.com/blog/archives/000544.html
i have the 1st version, but never got around to using it ...
are you waxing them ? if not, i wrote a simple stream of consciousness
instruction on waxing them the other day. not sure if it is any help or not
http://nanianphoto.com/blog/how-you-make-waxed-paper-negatives/
good luck !
john

 

[TheToadMen]

Hi John,
To avoid confusion: you're printing on paper and not transparencies, so you're waxing paper and not a transparency.

And paper itself is blocking UV too, a transparency will not. Maybe working with colour prints (like orange) will "increase" density?
I know it is done with inkjet digital negatives to filter out more UV light.

 

[removed account4]

hi bert

yes, just xerox paper, in black+white, no colors, no transparency.
i put wax on the paper to make it more see-through than it was
(you can acutally see through it ) .. it blocks the light some, but
not as much as just a regular sheet of paper ... AND when you put
the waxed paper in a contact frame or under glass it makes a great
seal/contact with the emulsified paper..

john

 

[BJ68]

I'm thinking about experimenting with laser printer negs. I have a bunch of letter size OHP transparency film that I want to make negs from. My first guess is that laser printers don't offer a high enough resolution for alt processes. But on the other hand, I would think toner would block UV light more effectively. Has anybody tried making laser printer negs?

Yes it works e.g. http://illumina-chemie.de/cyanotypie-t3305-s15.html#60203 and http://illumina-chemie.de/cyanotypie-t3305-s30.html#60237
I use this toner enhancer http://www.huber-graphics.com/tonerverdichterlf-am.0.html?&L=1 to get the blacks light proof and this kind ot OHP foils: "Avery Zweckform 3552 Overhead-Folien (A4, spezialbeschichtet, stapelverarbeitbar, Stärke: 0,10 mm)"
I have two laser printers for this porpose:
a) HP LaserJet 5200 TN Mono Laserprinter
b) 50004955 HP Drucker Laserjet 4050
I bought both used and the smaller one is used for cyanotype-workshop at scout camps.

BJ68

 

[Patrick Robert James]

I looked into doing this briefly but didn't find an easily available substrate for the negatives. Inkjet transparency film is easy to come by on the other hand. If your inks are drying out then you should seal the printer in a bag when you are not using it. Kind of like a cigar humidor, or one for a guitar.

Once you have the transparency film though it should be easy to make a neg. Print a long range target then print it. That will tell you the range of tones a laser negative will provide at the given exposure. You then adjust the file in PS to reflect those values. Easy peasy.

 

[samcomet]

I've been printing digital negs with my Canon Pro-100 inkjet printer for about a year now. The inks are expensive. Sometimes I don't print for a while and the inks dry out. I'm thinking about experimenting with laser printer negs. I have a bunch of letter size OHP transparency film that I want to make negs from. My first guess is that laser printers don't offer a high enough resolution for alt processes. But on the other hand, I would think toner would block UV light more effectively. Has anybody tried making laser printer negs?

I agree with BJ68. For what it is worth I've been making laser printed positives on my GCC laser printer with GCC branded acetate (its frosted for whatever reason i.e. it's not clear). I also use Toner Enhancer (by GCC) to get the dense positive and use the positive to strike a photo polymer etching plate under UV light (home made with a Philips UV globe in a spun aluminium fitting on an old Durst enlarger stand). I am getting fab-o results with the GCC printer and can highly recommend the laser printer process with whatever brand you end up using. I use the printer's internal screen at its best highest resolution and the the resulting etchings look great.

Best of luck if you end up trying this process, I don't think that you'll be disappointed.
cheers for now,
Sam

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Thanks for both of your insightful responses. I printed a photo with our laser printer and the half tones are too course for my taste. I think I secretly want a cheap image setter which right now, won't be available now nor in the future. I think for bang for the buck, inkjet printers is king now.

Best,
Don

 

[Svenedin]

I read this thread with interest. I have a laser printer but I do not have an inkjet. I am interested in having a try at a cyanotype. I have just printed out a negative on laser OHP film. Looking at the print it does not look great but I will give it a go anyway.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

A side note. I ordered some 3rd party inks for my Canon Pixma Pro 100 with ink tanks and a chip resetter. I don't really care if the printers make great prints, but I want to make good digital negs. My preliminary test so far indicates the ink set blocks UV pretty well. The ink cost less than a fifth of the Canon inks. Here's a link to the company I ordered the ink if anyone is curious.

http://www.precisioncolors.com/PC42cref.html

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I read this thread with interest. I have a laser printer but I do not have an inkjet. I am interested in having a try at a cyanotype. I have just printed out a negative on laser OHP film. Looking at the print it does not look great but I will give it a go anyway.

I'd imagine powdered toner blocks UV better than any ink from an ink jet printer. Good luck!

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Don't give up yet! Find a greyscale target (If you need one let me know), print it out, then contact it. You can then evaluate where in the scale the tones lack differentiation. You may have to adjust only a little for the highlights, but the shadows will probably block up for sure. IIRC, my laser printer won't differentiate anything darker than around 48 on the scale of 0-256. To adjust for this I set the "output" in the levels dialogue to 48. Do the same for the highlights whatever it is. The neg will be compressed to fit into what your printer can print. You will probably still have to adjust the image to get it to look how you want, but it isn't that difficult. A little trial and error unless you hav a densitometer...

By the way, I did a lot of experiments years ago and I found that black only ink was the way to go if you are using an inkjet printer. If you try to add another color then you get banding with alternative processes.

I think next time I order from Amazon I am going to get some transparency film and give this a whirl with some Cyanotype chems I have had laying about.

 

[Svenedin]

This is the picture I want to try to turn into a cyanotype. There is a reason. I damaged the negative (scratched it) so I cannot print it conventionally.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I've been printing digital negs with my Canon Pro-100 inkjet printer for about a year now. The inks are expensive. Sometimes I don't print for a while and the inks dry out. I'm thinking about experimenting with laser printer negs. I have a bunch of letter size OHP transparency film that I want to make negs from. My first guess is that laser printers don't offer a high enough resolution for alt processes. But on the other hand, I would think toner would block UV light more effectively. Has anybody tried making laser printer negs?

I've tried it on laser-safe foil and it works if you like the news paper-print look.

 

[removed account4]

Mainecoonmaniac:

sorry for my confusion !
i didnt' realize you were only interested in OHP film.

if you decide to use paper instead of film, its fun, ez and cheep!

john

 

[Svenedin]

Thank you for your help with this. It encouraged me to make my first 2 cyanotypes ever. The first I overexposed. I really didn't have much of a clue how much exposure was required in the sun. The second has turned out OK (still a bit overexposed but I can work on this)! I used a different negative in the end but printed with a laser on OHP transparency.

What a wonderful process! Best Wishes, Stephen

Both still wet.

 

[Luckless]

Another tool to consider is producing multiple dithered negatives, and possibly masking out sections completely, so you can build up various parts of the print slowly in several passes. Keying your frames becomes a bit of an issue, and it is also a larger hassle to deal with than being able to produce a working negative from a single print run, but it can allow a little more control and apparent resolution out of your gear.

You can do a lot of rather neat things when playing with dithered negatives in multiple layers/passes, such as generating some specifically to be vibrated a bit over the print rather than pressed into a firm sharp contact, while others can be handled in a more traditional manner. You also have the option of retouching the negative manually by hand in a few specific spots with less risk of 'ruining' the whole thing if you're doing a lot of retouching. By retouching the negatives in effective layers you gain a safety net because if you do happen to screw up on one then you can rerun a new copy of just that layer without affecting areas that were handled on other sheets.


It isn't the easiest method I've seen used, but it does offer some rather neat options.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Thank you for your help with this. It encouraged me to make my first 2 cyanotypes ever. The first I overexposed. I really didn't have much of a clue how much exposure was required in the sun. The second has turned out OK (still a bit overexposed but I can work on this)! I used a different negative in the end but printed with a laser on OHP transparency.

What a wonderful process! Best Wishes, Stephen

Both still wet.

It is a wonderful process. You can also put objects instead of a negative and make photograms. The older process that uses Potassium ferricyanide and ferric citrate is not very toxic so it's fun for kids. After developing in water, I put the print in a dilute solution of hydrogen peroxide. Just a splash in a tray of water. Have fun!