Printing Photos: Gravure? Halftone? Aquatint? Intaglio?

Hey folks!

I'm going to be producing a chapbook for my senior thesis in the Spring, and I had this idea to include photos along with my poems. Now, I could go ahead and make individual prints for every chapbook, but that seems like a lot of work and money to put into the project. So here's my idea to spend even more money and time on the project: I want to find a completely analog way to etch the photos somehow and use the etching to run off a bunch of prints. The best idea I've had so far is to do a sort of photogravure process with copper PCB boards similar to what I used to do back in my days of clipping schematics out of ARRL magazine. There's not a lot of detailed info on photogravure on the net, so I wondered if anyone had any experience with it and can point me to some resources? And perhaps someone has a better idea of how to accomplish this task?

My experience w/ fine art printing tells me that those PCB boards, even if properly etched, are not going to withstand the pressure of a press. You will need an etching type press to do this type of work, so you'll have to either have access to one at an art school/university, or buy one yourself. They are expensive. One does not run off a bunch of prints using hand techniques. It will take ages.

Photogravure requires through experience w/ etching and/or lithography printing, as well as darkroom printing experience. You will need a darkroom, and etching tools, acids and materials, along w/ said press. You will also need an acid bath and thick aluminum plates unless you use strong light to etch the lines and tones (which is not going to work nearly as well as traditional techniques), and everything will have to be laboriously hand printed one image at a time onto your paper. Which brings up the question of how you will print your poems w/o a letter press. There's the registration issue too. Using photogravure for images and inkjet printing the words is not really how it's done.

I would recommend mono printing, lino printing, or wood cut, as you can do this w/o an expensive press and minimal tools and experience. Lots of fun. Either "stamp press" the images (sandwich them between flat boards and stamp on them), or make a simple press w/ a car jack or carpenter clamps. I'm still concerned about the unsuitability of using a technique of hand made images w/ machine made words. The two don't belong together. You could use lino or wood cut printing to make the words. Look up the collaboration between the artist Larry Rivers and poet Frank O'Hara. In any case, this is going ot be a LOT of work, so unless your major is in art......

momus said:

I'm still concerned about the unsuitability of using a technique of hand made images w/ machine made words.

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I had toyed with the idea of silver printing the negatives and cutting and pasting them onto typewritten pages, then using ortho to image a 4 page chunk and making plates from the ortho negatives. The whole point was that I wanted to use all analog/manual processes and avoid using the computer if possible.

But given the number of discouraging (and even vaguely hostile) responses I've gotten so far maybe I'll figure something else out instead.

This is not a simple undertaking -- do a web search for "photomechanical reproduction." Processes like photogravure and collotype can take years to master and require a press -- you would have to contract this out (and pay $$$) to meet a spring deadline. Gelatin silver and even palladium is doable -- you could tip the prints onto pages with text, or bind the prints as separate pages. Given your schedule, digital output is really the most practical option, and even that might be a stretch depending on your experience. You might want to start a thread on DPUG.

handle2001 said:

I had toyed with the idea of silver printing the negatives and cutting and pasting them onto typewritten pages, then using ortho to image a 4 page chunk and making plates from the ortho negatives. The whole point was that I wanted to use all analog/manual processes and avoid using the computer if possible.

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There still is extra-thin photo paper available in case you would consider pasting them into the printed book.

handle2001 said:

Hey folks!

I'm going to be producing a chapbook for my senior thesis in the Spring, and I had this idea to include photos along with my poems. Now, I could go ahead and make individual prints for every chapbook, but that seems like a lot of work and money to put into the project. So here's my idea to spend even more money and time on the project: I want to find a completely analog way to etch the photos somehow and use the etching to run off a bunch of prints. The best idea I've had so far is to do a sort of photogravure process with copper PCB boards similar to what I used to do back in my days of clipping schematics out of ARRL magazine. There's not a lot of detailed info on photogravure on the net, so I wondered if anyone had any experience with it and can point me to some resources? And perhaps someone has a better idea of how to accomplish this task?

Click to expand...

handle2001 said:

I had toyed with the idea of silver printing the negatives and cutting and pasting them onto typewritten pages, then using ortho to image a 4 page chunk and making plates from the ortho negatives. The whole point was that I wanted to use all analog/manual processes and avoid using the computer if possible.

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http://www.capefearpress.com

she is a gravure artist and has videos on the process on her website,
she also offeres services if you need them. as pschwart mentions it is pretty tedious.
good luck learning how to make gravures, it isn't easy, and requires a press that
if you don't have, sometimes you can find on sale for a few hundred dollars
(they are heavy and freight might be $$ too ) ... if your school has a press, you are golden !


you might consider making your book hand stitched
i've been making them since around 1981 ( around 30, maybe more, maybe less books )
some have been closed spine like a regular hard covered book others open spine / japanese bound.
and if you have an open spine edition you really don't need any specialized tools, just materials.


you can hand write the poems on acetate, or mylar you can print them on a page using photography cyanotype will make blue background white letters, that you can bleach back and
stain, paint, tone any color you want. regular photo paper too, or use hand made emulsion on any kind of paper you want, black background, white words, unless you contact print as a positive
and again, you can bleach, stain, tone &c. i'm fond of butcher paper, its cheap and works great .. with both photo emulsion as well as cyanotype chemistry.
if you go hand stitched as your final book, there are lots of how to videos these days on the web, or you can pick up the books boxes and portfolio book, or keith smith's series on making books
they are all readily available online and easy to read ( keith's books have information on beautiful stitching ) .. if the paper is thick, you might have to do a few tricks to make the spine pages
as thick as the image pages so the book lies flat.

good luck with your project -

john

ps. the first book of photographs was all cyanotypes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Atkins

handle2001,

Have you considered the photopolymer platemaking process? This has some of the advantages of acid etching but using a much safer solvent: water. A photopolymer plate is like a "rubber stamp" it does not need extreme pressure for printing. But you don't get continuous tone, it's high contrast and you need a halftone screen if you want to render grays.

Otherwise, tipped-in silver gelatin prints would be a lot of work... but I would find the result valuable and beautiful.

Bill Burk said:

handle2001,

Have you considered the photopolymer platemaking process? This has some of the advantages of acid etching but using a much safer solvent: water. A photopolymer plate is like a "rubber stamp" it does not need extreme pressure for printing. But you don't get continuous tone, it's high contrast and you need a halftone screen if you want to render grays.

Otherwise, tipped-in silver gelatin prints would be a lot of work... but I would find the result valuable and beautiful.

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Photopolymer gravures are exposed to film positives which adds a whole other layer of complexity. A digital negative workflow is often used, but the OP wanted to stay strictly analog. An aquatint screen is used to create continuous tone images, and an etching press is still required. Photopolymer is a lot simpler than dust grain copper plate gravure, but it's not something to be learned in a couple of days, or even a couple of months.

How many units are required? I mean how many completed books/pamphlets etc?

It is fairly simple (ie. doesn't involve learning a new process and equipment) to make RC prints. If they are complex ones, then make a slightly flat print and re-photograph that. I had a short run of pictures for greetings cards that I made with four to a sheet ready for trimming, simply by making a rectangular mask with a (carefully measured) corner cut out. The paper goes in the easel full-sheet, the mask goes on top, exposure top left, turn the mask over so that the 'missing' corner is on the other side, exposure top right, turn it again, exposure bottom left, turn it again, exposure bottom right. Obviously moving the easel, to line things up with the red filter. The saving in processing time is huge doing this.

Then again, if you have a more graphic result in mind, perhaps simple photo-copies would work? A high-contrast photographic original could look 'different' if copied like that.

Dust grain copperplate photogravure is a demanding discipline, and even once you have a good plate--is not a recipe for cranking out prints. Pulling a good quality print takes time and is slower than making silver prints--never mind the work to produce the plate. A copper-plated PCB probably doesn't have sufficient thickness of copper for good etching and may crush or crack under the press. Photopolymer gravure is much simpler, but still a trip down the rabbit hole. If you're serious and have pockets full of money, you could take a good workshop, and then arrange for private guidance to produce your print run.