salted paper: transparencies for laser printer?

olk

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Hi,
salted paper printing requires negatives in the size of the final print (8x10).
Unfortunately I've only 6x6 middle format negatives. I own a scanner and a laser printer (HP LaserJet pro mfp m277dw) at home (no inkjet printer).
My question is if I could use the laser printer with an appropriate type of transparencies?

Oliver
 
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removed account4

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hi Oliver
I have successfully made internegatives ( ink jet and xerography ) for salt prints, you won't have trouble with your laser printer...
you WILL have to learn the dark art of waxing your paper to make it translucent. ... its not too hard. ..
John
 

Mainecoonmaniac

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The toner will probably block enough UV for the transparency to work. However, laser printers have very limited resolution and make poor halftones.
 
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olk

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Could you recommend some manufactures of transparencies that work?

An alternative to transparencies would be using paper negatives - but I'm not sure how well paper negatives print halftones.
 

MattKing

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removed account4

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Here is a demo for waxing paper for negatives.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/harrlequin/5666789707/
I use a very inexpensive epson 640 expression printer
( it cost $65 at the local big box office store )
While I haven't done it with a laser printer, I have a friend
who was using his inexpensive laser printer for the same thing..
it might be worth a try before you dive deep with more expensive options..
I don't have scans of them, but I made salt prints from this cheep ink jet printer,
as well as cyanotypes and ziatypes and albumen prints and kaliotype and gum bichromate...
I also used Xerox prints ( paper ) as well as transparencies ( overhead projector film )
and made for digital negative pictorico film as well, and they all worked great.
 

jprofita

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This is a digital capture, inverted in PS, printed with a $50 laser printer on regular paper, waxed with paraffin, toned cyanotype made on higher quality paper. I did have some banding with the economy laser printer but they gave a better final print than negatives made with a high quality inkjet printer. I say try it...
 
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olk

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Thank you a lot... seams I've several options.

I haven't had in mind that a could use also the laser printer for an intermediate paper negative because I own a Durst enlarger.
I guess the paper negatives made by the Durst would be of better quality (a better intermediate negative) than the one made by the laser printer - but I'm uncertain.

Creating a paper negative:
  • Durst enlarger: 6x6 film negative -> enlarger -> paper positive -> contact printing -> paper negative
  • Scanner: 6x6 film negative -> scanner (Epson V800) -> dig. negative -> laser printer -> paper negative
Should I prefer the process using the enlarger?

Oliver
 
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radiant

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This sounds interesting!

Canon i-SENSYS LBP162dw laser printer (160 euros) gives 1200 x 1200 dpi - maybe the banding / dithering would disappear with this accuracy? That could be worth investing in because I would need a new printer anyways.

I need to get some paraffin oil and try myself on regular silver gelatin print & lith printing!
 

Mainecoonmaniac

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It's looks amazing.
 

NedL

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I think you should try w/o waxing or oiling the paper first. You might be surprised how well it works ( especially if you use the sun to print ).
 

koraks

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vedostuu said:
Canon i-SENSYS LBP162dw laser printer (160 euros) gives 1200 x 1200 dpi - maybe the banding / dithering would disappear with this accuracy?
Click to expand...
I don't have much hope, to be honest. It's still no continuous tone process. Alright, neither is inkjet, but at least contemporary inkjet has a few gradations of black and generally much better dither algorithms than laser printers. Maybe the latter has improved; the former is a fundamental issue that simply cannot be improved. It doesn't help that there's not much R&D funds going into development of laser anymore - the technology is considered pretty much mature.

Btw, I moved away from inkjet negatives (Epson 3880) because I found the little dot patterns in my prints annoying and I couldn't further improve on the outcome with this printer. Of course, inkjet is also optimized for use with paper, which always has some degree of bleeding. Ink flow settings in the printer driver actually take into account the degree of bleeding/blooming to get as close to continuous tones as possible. With transparency materials, no such luck - it's either sharply defined dots or one big smeary mess.

I know many are very happy with their inkjet digital negatives, particularly when using modern printers such as the R800 etc. However, I gave up on it in favor of film negatives. I know Bob Carnie also prefers silver negatives made with an image setter. Given the man's vast experience in printmaking, I'm afraid he's probably right in his choice.
 

radiant

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koraks said:
I don't have much hope, to be honest. It's still no continuous tone process.
Click to expand...

Neither is silver based products

Anyways, I ended up buying color laser printer which should arrive in 12h. Basically it seems that all laser printers are 600dpi by "mechanical" performance (I guess) but marketing values are 1200dpi or even 2400dpi. I don't really know what this means. Not related to this topic but there were quite strange praising on some laser printers that those are capable of printing same quality color prints than "most" of consumer inkjets. That got my eye and I'm keen to try out! I've been lately started to do digital drawing and it would be nice to print some of my work too!

Whatever the result is, I'm not going to try to replace film with this. I hope I can turn this as one way of graphical representation that I could use to achieve certain look, feeling .. Really interested to try things out - for example lith printing from digital negative.
 

radiant

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Got my color laser (cost 170 euros = 201 USD). Here is my self-made calibration sheet printed ready for testing. I tweaked the printer settings a bit and the dithering got better. Altough it is visible still, I think it is quite nice. I will print tests tomorrow to see how it transfer to RC paper.

Off-topic but I tested color + B/W printing too, I'm pretty blown away of the quality. I was really skeptical of the outcome but I could actually frame some of those prints :O





 

nmp

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Can this print color as well? The spec seem to say "monochrome." Also what about paper - can it print on the standard inkjet papers like baryta, photo rag, etc. Seems very intriguing as an alternative. I bet the UV opacity for digineg is off the charts.

Also, can you not add your own dithering in Photoshop prior to sending out to the printer?

:Niranjan.
 

radiant

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Uhm, sorry the printer model changed to color laser. I purchased Canon i-SENSYS LBP621Cw after all (50 eur more expensive than monochrome).

I found glossy laser paper from online yesterday.I was comparing the matte paper prints to real color paper and thought that glossy paper would make those even better. Some have rolled normal inkjet glossy paper through it, but there was a warning that the plastic coating might get stuck inside the laser drums.

I ddin't apply any dithering myself; that was all done in laser.

koraks said:
That looks surprisingly good; very promising! Now go and make some salt prints please
Click to expand...

Wait, wasn't this thread about color laser printers?? I will try those out on silver prints first. I have never tested salt printing but maybe I need to try it out too!
 
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radiant

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I just made some test prints from laser printed negative on bulk copy paper. I used paraffin wax (oil?) to make the paper more transparent.

I think it worked very well. The paper fiber texture is a bit visible, but as it is organic form it gives certain look. It doesn't dominate at all. I could get full tonal range on paper with contrast grade about at 2-3. (I used Ilford MG RC V paper)

I also tested laser printed transparency. Oh man, that looked so good! Of course laser printed negatives aren't for "polished" and "perfect" photos but the transparency method looked very little "experimental" or "alternative"! Very film'ish look (don't get triggered here )

Here was just summary of my tests for this topic. I will open new thread once the prints are dried + scanned so I'm not hijacking this thread. No salt prints, yet ..
 
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