wax-vellum-silver leaf-waterpaper print

Not really sure where I should post this, I made my first alt print, with an Olympus e-p2. About 60 images stitched in Photoshop. My goal is eventually to replace the inkjet (Epson 3880) vellum print with Pt/Pd on vellum, which I've seen is possible but expensive, so I want to get the technique down first. I didn't get any love on photo.net with this image, but it was a test. I did choose still life objects that are dear to me but there's nothing really special happening, it seems...



Lots of fun. Process:



1) make a big pic about 60 images on Manfrotto SPH-303 head w/Olympus e-p2 and 50/2 macro.



This thing (a crop but it's handy, so...):



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Then I got weird. I chose the following process:



1) buy waterpaper.



2) put pure silver leaf on it.

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3) do the print in vellum on Epson 3880.

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4) wax it.

I have a lot to learn. I'm using acrylic based items for the sandwich right now (size etc.) but I want to find a transparent oil-based size and actually oil the vellum after the print...i.e. a non-drying oil. Next print will be:

1) waterpaper
2) acrylic size (no reason not to behind everything?)
3) silver leaf
4) transparent oil-based size
5) oiled (non-drying, extra virgin olive oil unless someone comments against it) vellum digiprint. I've experimented but not placed it on a substrate yet - it does what I want visually (brings the leaf out a bit more).
6) Museum wax which is also oil based, works great! If I want to flash the final layer, it gives a bit of sheen, the way encaustic painters used to do it...

Open to suggestions Step 5 will eventually be replaced with Pt/Pd...I hope lol!

Shawn

oops:

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A few years ago there was a long thread on the Alt-Photo list regarding oiling paper negatives to increase their transparency for printing. It went into the pros and cons of various oils. I know I printed out a lot of it thinking I might give paper negs a try but I never have. I think I still have this around here somewhere. If I can find it I'll pass on the conclusions which I have now forgotten.

I seem to remember mineral oil and baby oil as being recommended. Cooking oils were not - they go rancid.

Good luck with your project.

Dan

Thanks Dan. Now that you say that, I remember from my painting days, yes cooking oils go rancid (see www.studioproducts.com, lots of oil talk there if the site still exists).

I might be better to just use a very transparent drying oil, say poppyseed (rather than linseed), and a little alkyd as a drier. I hope you find your notes

On another subject, just for fun, I just bought (my fourth LOL) Nikon F4s with 85/1.8 (sold the last of my film gear over a decade ago) and am thinking of carrying over the stitching idea from digital to something like Delta 3200 at 1600. If shooting 9 to 36 (say) images and stitching them via KM 5400II and photoshop, I think the results would be lovely. No need for a slow-slow film if you're making a huge negative And I can't afford MF gear+scanner right now...

Now I need to remember how to soup

Shawn

dafy said:

On another subject, just for fun, I just bought (my fourth LOL) Nikon F4s with 85/1.8 (sold the last of my film gear over a decade ago) and am thinking of carrying over the stitching idea from digital to something like Delta 3200 at 1600. If shooting 9 to 36 (say) images and stitching them via KM 5400II and photoshop, I think the results would be lovely. No need for a slow-slow film if you're making a huge negative And I can't afford MF gear+scanner right now...

Now I need to remember how to soup

Shawn

Click to expand...

At the risk of taking this thread OT...

In principle this could work, but it's more complex than stitching with a digital camera. I did this (once) a while back with film. Here's a few things to consider:

1) You have to be very precise with your cropping of each frame. Ideally, each frame should have identical pixel dimensions, and include (or exclude) the exact same amount of border (frame mask) around each image.

2) Even with that, you'll probably want to use one of the more advanced stitching packages out there, either PTGUI ($$$) or Hugin (open-source/free). Both, I believe, can accomodate shift and translation parameters that might be necessary to get the best stitch possible.

3) Automatic control point generators will absolutely choke on a larger-grain film like anything shot at 1600 or 3200. It will use random bits of grain structure as control ponits, which will totally mess up the stitching...you'll have to add all your control points by hand.

Good luck, and if you do end up trying this, be sure to start a new thread and let us know how it went.

--Greg

I was my digi-negs with pure white beeswax by heating them on a griddle/cookie sheet and rubbing them with a solid chunk of the wax. It's easy to overdo it, so be careful and keep rubbing the excess with paper towels (doesn't appear to rub any ink off, so that's a plus!)

What I am curious about is what kind of vellum (brand & type) you are using and what your printer settings are?

Sorry for the delay

Thanks Greg. I'm going to start with a few rolls of Efke 25 and ATP1.1 after reading your post. Makes sense anyways since I'll be using a tripod of course.

I'll probably end up scanning the entire surface of each neg on my scanner, ie identical resolutions. Then in Photoshop make a file that is smaller (enough to remove dead edges etc.) and paste each scan into a layer, and 1 by 1 do the align layer thing, which has worked on 3 6x7 negs that I butchered to test in my Minolta 5400. It worked 3 times on the equivalent of 3 images stitched, perfectly. However it also failed miserably on one negative for no apparent reason lol.

gmikol said:

At the risk of taking this thread OT...

In principle this could work, but it's more complex than stitching with a digital camera. I did this (once) a while back with film. Here's a few things to consider:

1) You have to be very precise with your cropping of each frame. Ideally, each frame should have identical pixel dimensions, and include (or exclude) the exact same amount of border (frame mask) around each image.

2) Even with that, you'll probably want to use one of the more advanced stitching packages out there, either PTGUI ($$$) or Hugin (open-source/free). Both, I believe, can accomodate shift and translation parameters that might be necessary to get the best stitch possible.

3) Automatic control point generators will absolutely choke on a larger-grain film like anything shot at 1600 or 3200. It will use random bits of grain structure as control ponits, which will totally mess up the stitching...you'll have to add all your control points by hand.

Good luck, and if you do end up trying this, be sure to start a new thread and let us know how it went.

--Greg

Click to expand...

PVia said:

What I am curious about is what kind of vellum (brand & type) you are using and what your printer settings are?

Click to expand...

I couldn't say what the brand is right now, I will have to go back to the store to look. Vellum was purchased in sheets, about 10 of them, at an art store. They weren't in a box. I'm not so sure I'll stick with this vellum anyways, want to look around for a brand which is not so blue-white (ie cold) in the base, and more transparent. Printer settings for the above print were Epson 3880 with neutral black and white and the profile was for Epson Velvet Fine Art. I know a lot of people let Photoshop habdle the profile etc., but I've had excellent luck with normal prints on Epson paper letting the printer handle it - very very close to my monitor and I've not even calibrated yet (one step at a time with my purchases lol).

On the earlier vellum I purchased, it really smears/pools the darks (the above settings). On this vellum, it was better. But as you can see from the boot, it's still not perfect.

PVia said:

I was my digi-negs with pure white beeswax by heating them on a griddle/cookie sheet and rubbing them with a solid chunk of the wax. It's easy to overdo it, so be careful and keep rubbing the excess with paper towels (doesn't appear to rub any ink off, so that's a plus!)

Click to expand...

I really like the museum wax, a lot...it's awesome and easy


Shawn

A eureka moment from my painting days.

The oil is a critical part of the process, and I'm going to try Canada balsam/poppyseed with lavender oil of spike to thin it out. I've done a few oil tests (guilding size actually) and they make the print un-smudgable, but they change the character (they add yellow in the best case).

The above combination should change it much less If you've ever heard of amber, CB is young amber; copal is in the middle. Poppyseed oil as the additive is very clear (but will yellow over the years) and lavender oil of spike is a beautiful smelling reducer. It's organic so not sure in the big scheme if it's better than turps,...

It's all about thin I think...

Just tried pure baby oil, no additives, with about 25% of the guilding oil. The guilding oil dries but is very yellow, so we'll see what happens (yelllow is gone mostly with the 75% baby oil mix)...much cheaper than balsam/poppy/oil of spike. That combination would be ROCK hard because of the balsam (resins are brittle), but I'm not so sure rock hard is a good idea. Not to mention what the poppy would do over the years...

What I did today is clear/no hue (minimal hue, about a 3% change to yellow) so let's see how it dries on the vellum...so far so good a few hours later, but I'll let this one dry for a few days since there's not much drier in there...mostly clear baby oil.

Still looking...