Carbon Transfer Printing.Beautiful but soon to be a lost skill

[Martolod]

http://www.harrowsmithnow.com/features/ ... -in-canada

[LarryD]

Thanks for that.

[Brazile]

I don't think it will be a lost skill; there are those who are still teaching it (I took a course to learn how at Eastman House; I think there's a photo essay about it here somewhere, or perhaps it was over at NFF) and there are folks discovering it now. Like many deceptively simple processes, it's not very difficult to do, but you can spend a lifetime perfecting your technique. The results are beautiful (especially on glass!) and it's about the most archival process you can find. I encourage anybody who finds alternative printing processes interesting to look into it. Keep in mind that you can use film negatives or digital negatives printed on transparency sheets for the process, and the latter method is sometimes useful even for film originals because you can apply curves before printing. Someday (perhaps after retirement) I'd like to explore color carbon printing, but it's more involved because of the registration required as well as getting the color balance of the separations right. There's a couple nice videos on YouTube that show this process for those who are interested.

Robert

[Brazile]

Found the essay, it was over at NFF:

Carbon Transfer Printing workshop at the Eastman House

Robert