Previously I wrote about trouble I was running into with DAS-incorporated carbon tissue. I just couldn’t get those tissues to transfer properly. Well, looks like I figured out why. In the process, I received some useful advice to boot, and perhaps there are some myths being established as well. Are you starting out with DAS and running into issues? Maybe some of the info in this blog can be of help.
Continue reading “DAS right! – Solving the teething problems of DAS carbon transfer”Tag: carbon transfer
Color carbon made feasible, part 1: halftone screens
In my previous blog post, I outlined a couple of tough challenges I met in the color carbon project. These challenges are partly inherent to the carbon transfer process, and partly stem from working with digital negatives, in particular continuous tone negatives. In this blog, I will outline the two main components to a solution to these challenges: halftone screen negatives and sensitizer-incorporated tissue.
Continue reading “Color carbon made feasible, part 1: halftone screens”Color carbon and digital inkjet negatives: challenges
It’s been awfully quiet on the color carbon front, hasn’t it? Well, that’s partly accurate. I haven’t done as many test strips these past two weeks as I’d been doing before, and the reason is that I’m at a crossroads with this project now. Having learned lots, it’s also becoming clearer now what I’m dealing with. The question is – how to proceed? Let’s start with exploring some of the challenges I’m currently facing, which all happen to revolve around consistency and linearity.
Continue reading “Color carbon and digital inkjet negatives: challenges”Black is the new black – Pigments for B&W carbon transfer
No, I haven’t given up color carbon just yet, but neither will I leave B&W alone. One issue I’ve been having is that of hue. After all, there’s black, and there’s black: black pigments tend to come in all sorts of hues, so there’s lots to choose from. But a satisfactorily neutral black has evaded me for quite some time – until now!
Continue reading “Black is the new black – Pigments for B&W carbon transfer”How to ab-stain? Dichromate stain issues in carbon printing
No, I haven’t given up on the color carbon project. Yet! But there are challenges, and they can be, well, challenging. For one, I’m running into trouble with hue and chroma of the color layers and I’ve been having a hard time figuring out what happens. One probable cause is actually dichromate staining. Let me exstain. Err, explain.
Continue reading “How to ab-stain? Dichromate stain issues in carbon printing”Fairy dust – Dry pigments for color carbon
Alright, I caved. I had been ogling the website of Kremer Pigmente for a few weeks and ultimately I decided to order some pigments from them. I think it actually makes sense, despite the warnings I was given by multiple people on the forums. After all, dry pigments are challenging to work with. Or so they say…
Continue reading “Fairy dust – Dry pigments for color carbon”Fade to grey – The pigment balance problem
Open any book or web page on color printing and it’ll say at some point that all pigments or dyes used in the process should mix to a neutral grey or black – at least in theory. It’s an issue I’ve been ignoring throughout my color carbon adventures so far. Well, not exactly ignoring, but I didn’t spend sufficient attention to it, certainly not in writing. Allow me to make up for this, at least in part. In this blog, I’ll explore the issue of pigment balance and try and work out a way to determine, at least with rather coarse resolution, a usable pigment balance for color carbon tissues.
Continue reading “Fade to grey – The pigment balance problem”The curve is dead, long live the curve – the linearization game, part 3
After observing a bit of a problem with a lack of linearization and setting myself up for embarking on the effort of linearization, it’s time to describe this actual linearization process itself. It’s going to be a dish with inkjet digital negatives as the main ingredient, broiled in a broth of GIMP with generous lashes of Excel and a good whiff of intuition, topped off with some guesswork for good measure. It’s going to be a bumpy ride!
Continue reading “The curve is dead, long live the curve – the linearization game, part 3”Straight ahead– the linearization game, part 2
Previously I wrote about the necessity of linearization: if you print an inkjet digital negative, what densities you can expect from the resulting carbon transfer print are a bit of a gamble. Put differently: the relationship between inkjet negative density and print density is not a linear one. To get color to work reasonably well, I’ll need to linearize my curves reasonably well, too. It’s a bit of a chore, but…well, no but, and not a ‘bit’ either. It’s just a chore. And there’s actually some preparations to be done before I can start with the…err, preparations. (I’m not sure when I’ll get to the actual printing, come to think of it!)
Continue reading “Straight ahead– the linearization game, part 2”Kinky curves – the linearization game, part 1
It’s starting to become a series of blogs, this color carbon project of mine. Not that I expected it to be easy, of course. Note the title of the first installment. I knew what I was heading into. And here we are, right in the middle of it all. Frankly, this is my least favorite part of a hybrid process: the struggle to get something that displays as e.g. 10% tone value on a computer screen to print as a 10% tone value on paper. In other words: linearization. Let me share my woes with you for a minute, while also briefly touching upon the topic of layer order and assembly of the color image.
Continue reading “Kinky curves – the linearization game, part 1”