Unit 2 Essay

From the beginning of my project my aim has been to capture some of what remains of the architecture of the industrial era in an attempt to represent this period of time through modern digital technology and in this way make a connection between our current digital revolution and the industrial revolution of the 19^th & 20^th century.

This essay is a reflection on my two year journey into the project, on my learning, development and contextualization of ‘Industrialism brought forward’.

This is the link to the PDF file of my essay

Printing first plate

Toyobo Printight Solar Plate (KM73)

I got the first stochastic positive printed from the inkjet printer Epson Stylus Pro 4800 at collage using Wasatch RIP program. For the settings I choose the Epx800Promic- Han German paper setting in the printer driver at 1440 dpi. My first positive was successfully printed. I could now use it to make my first plate. I went onto exposing the Toyobo Solar plate.

Steps for the exposure:

• Firstly it was exposed in the UV light unit to an aquatint screen for 15 light units.
• Secondly it was exposed to the positive for another 15 lu.
• To develop the plate it was washed for 3 minutes and then blotted with newsprint paper to stop the etching
• Once dried under the fans for a few minutes it was exposed again during 30 lu for hardening.

I applied a thin layer of ink (F66- is a soft medium black) to the plate with a roller and then blotted it with Tarlatan (cheesecloth) until all the excess ink was removed. To finish the inking of the plate I used a technique called retroussage:”The method of bringing ink up from incised lines (or dots) in an intaglio plate; dragging a soft cloth across the ink-filled lines prior to printing to spread the ink to the adjacent areas and to render certain passages darker and richer”.

To print it the paper (Somerset satin) needed to be soaked for 30 minutes and subsequently put between blotting paper and pressed with a rubber roller to remove the excess moisture. It was then ready to be printed. Laying the printing press bed with tissue in order not to dirty it,  then the plate is placed and on top the soaked paper good side down and some more tissue and the blankets on top for pressure. The pressure on the printing press indicated 3/9. Finally it is passed through the press and dried afterward between blotting paper.

I am happy with the result of this process, the dot of the stochastic positive has given the print a very fine quality that resembles old grainy photographs. Now that I have had this result I have confidence on following this method of printing, which means that I don’t need to research Lambda printing any further.

Valve 1. Solar plate print

Valve 1 detail. Solar plate print

Stochastic Printing

I got some good results with the photopolymer plates. I bought a Toyobo Printight Solar Plate (KM73) which allows high resolution positives to be transferred to it. Because of this I was told that I could use a different way of printing the positives, called stochastic printing. [Stochastic is a mathematical term that means random, having to do with random variable/s involving probability or chance]. It differs from the conventional printing in the modulation. Conventional Printing is AM (amplitude modulation) and Stochastic printing is FM (frequency modulation)

• Amplitude Modulation. In printing, used to refer to conventional halftone printing techniques in which dots of various sizes (amplitude) are used to reproduce the tones and colors of a continuous tone image, with large dots used to reproduce the darker areas and smaller dots to reproduce the lighter areas.

• Frequency modulation. Used in printing to refer to stochastic printing techniques in which the number of dots, and sometimes their size as well, is changed to reproduce the different tones and colours in a continuous tone image, with relatively more, closely spaced dots used to reproduce dark areas and relatively fewer, more widely spaced dots used to reproduce light areas.

(information from ED NewPage and education)

So, I am going to try to produce this positives at collage although I heard that it maybe a little difficult as a highly developed program is needed in order to use complex algorithms to place the dots more or less often as required in order to reproduce the image with no determinable pattern. If the ripping program -raster image processor- Wasatch (which is the one we have at collage) can’t handle working with the inkjet printer in this manner then I’ll have to go to a commercial establishment to get it done. One more thing to think about is that although this process (FM) will give finer detail than the conventional method (AM) also it is quite unforgiving and imperfections will be more visible sometimes showing too much detail.