Making Calendars

hoffy · Jul 1, 2011

Howdy,

I am thinking of making a few calendars for some close family and friends this year. I had thought of using a nice fibre based matt paper, printing a smallish image on the top and then some how printing a standard calendar grid on the bottom.

Obviously, the photograph is the easy side of things. I had thought of making up a couple of masking frames to ensure that I don't expose the paper where it doesn't need exposing.

The challenging part, though, is printing of the calendar grid. I had initially thought of making some transparencies and printing a grid on them for each month (using a normal office type printer) and using them to contact print to the photo paper. I am not sure how easy this would be achieved.

Has anyone else done calendars? Does anyone have any ideas on the best methods?

Cheers

tomalophicon · Jul 1, 2011

Hoffy, I was going to do some and thought of making the Calendars in word, printing them, then shooting them with some high contrast film and printing them in the enlarger. If you have a big enlarger, you'd be able to fit 2 35mm negs into the neg carrier.
Tom.

Ian Grant · Jul 1, 2011

I've done quite a few in the past. You need your normal neg and a lith/line neg for the actual date part.

There's two (or 3) ways. First is using one enlarger print the images masking off the rest, then print the text. Or use two enlargers. I've done both once set up it's very simple and quick/

The third way is sandwich the calendar text as a positive lith neg with the main image so the Text is white, this is the hardest.

I did this kind of work day in, day out, for many years, once you get your head around it you'll see how simple and easy it is.

Ian

Rick A · Jul 1, 2011

Porters Camera used to sell calendar mats for printing your own years ago. I wonder if they are still available.

mopar_guy · Jul 1, 2011

Porter's camera still lists masks. Look at porters.com.

hoffy · Jul 1, 2011

mopar_guy said:
Porter's camera still lists masks. Look at porters.com.

http://www.porters.com/2011-horizontal-darkroom-calendar-mask-8-x-10.html

Cut me off the at the knees and call me shorty! I would, though be limited to Landscape, unless I was to make an insert.

I'll send them an enquiry to see if they will do a 2012 edition. It's a shame, though, they don't do month by month.

Cheers

hoffy · Jul 1, 2011

I have thought of another option, but that would probably cause me to be ostracized here.....I could always print the image and (Heavan forbid) print the calendar part using an inkjet.....

But, that would require me to were a shirt with a Scarlet 'D' on it and require me to spend 20 days in stocks with constant whipping.....

polyglot · Jul 2, 2011

Depending on how many you want to make, there are a few companies that will print calendars on an offset printer for you. Implies hybrid, of course, but are the people you're giving them to going to appreciate the difference?

I'm also not sure how good an emulsion would be as a calendar surface for writing on...

Paul VanAudenhove · Jul 2, 2011

I've thought about this kind of project too, although I still haven't tried it. My idea was to print landscapes with a wider bottom margin to allow for comb binding, which would allow the calendar to hang flat on a wall. I figured that I would be able to use the back of the next print for the calendar grid. And that's as far as I got...

Dan Henderson · Jul 2, 2011

I have done a couple of calendars for friends and family in the past, although they were of the inkjet variety. I then took them to Staples (an office supply company in the US) to have them bound with comb-style bindings.

I always wondered if it was possible to print the months on the back of developed sheets of FB paper, but I never tried it. I wondered if the pictures would get messed up as the paper went through the printer. I guess a scrap print would be a good test...

Paul VanAudenhove · Jul 2, 2011

I tried running a FB print through an inkjet - it seems to me that it came out ok. I just used on old scrap print to see if it would work, but I never examined the print surface to see how the emulsion side fared. I would guess a matte surface would be best.

MattKing · Jul 2, 2011

Print the calendar part on regular paper, using a laser or inkjet printer.

Combine with interleaved photographs, using a comb binding.

David Brown · Jul 2, 2011

hoffy said:
But, that would require me to were a shirt with a Scarlet 'D' on it and require me to spend 20 days in stocks with constant whipping.....

I've thought of doing calendars several times (and still might some day) but I don't think I would ever bother with FB prints. I can just see into the future far enough to imagine once the calendar outlives it's utility, the darkroom print (or prints) goes in the trash.

Making Calendars

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