Carbon Prints in Color?

I've read a couple references to "color carbon prints" but I think

they were talking about traditional carbon print using a colored

pigment instead of essentially pure lampblack. I've also seen a

reference to color separations in relation to carbon printing -- and I

can easily see making separation prints in the three primary light

colors (or good approximations, using artists' pigments), for later

rephotography or optical recombination.

 

What I find intriguing, however, is the idea of making a color print

-- that is, a print that would look like the color photographs we're

used to seeing, or at least like the process color images common in

magazines and books -- with the carbon printing process. That is,

putting all the colors (RGB or CMYK -- I think the latter more likely

to produce a useful image) on a single tissue.

 

I presume such a print would have to be made sequentially from

separation negatives. Could it possibly be as simple as coating a

tissue with cyan, exposing and developing from a red channel negative,

then repeating the process with magenta/green, yellow/blue, and black

with a "traditional" brightness b&w negative (or possibly doing the

same work in a different order)? Has this been done, or tried and

abandoned, or did no one bother -- or was Autochrome a variation on

this idea?

Dunno, Donald. I have heard that some inkjet print makers have taken to tarting up the cachet of their prints by calling 'em "carbon" prints. Apparently the term giclee has lost its ability to baffle the uninformed. Could "color carbon" prints be nothing more than inkjet prints? I see no reference to a color alternative for true, traditional carbon printing in my old reference books.

Inkjets aside, there are people working in true 3- and 4-color carbon. The most well known commercial producer of color carbon prints in Fresson in France.

check out:

 

http://www.atelier-fresson.com/history.htm

 

Sheila Metzner has used Fresson prints e.g. her Flower pictures:

 

http://www.faheykleingallery.com/featured_artists/metzner/metzner_03.htm

Okay, David, that answers part of my question -- in that, yes, people are doing or have done four color carbon printing using the genuine gelatin process. Can you (or anyone else) provide a reference for how to go about putting the four colors on the same tissue?

 

I keep thinking it can't be a simple as just printing four images one atop the other (presumably using a pin registration system or similar to ensure that the image you can't see under the new color layer is registered with the one you're printing). For one thing, how would one prevent the pigment in the new layer from infiltrating the old layer in the manner of a bromoil print accepting oil pigment where the gelatin is etched (will hardening each layer before proceeding be enough)? Also, how would one formulate pigmented gelatin with the transparency such an overprinting technique would require, and still achieve good saturation? Or would transparent pigment be required, since there's certainly adequate gray tonality in traditional carbon prints (but then what keeps the yellow layer, say, from blocking the cyan and magenta layers where the yellow is 100%)?

 

What I'm leading up to here is a technique that would produce archival stability in full, lifelike color, with continuous tone (rather than half-tone like a color lithoprint), with more art and less expensive and market dependent color processing and enlarging technology; in a way, technique that might be reproducible, if adequately documented, a century from now, the way wet or dry plate and salted paper printing are reproducible now. I don't expect to get all the answers from this forum -- I expect to spend a long time in my darkroom (once I have one) and in the kitchen, learning traditional carbon printing, learning separation techniques, formulating gelatin pigment mixtures, and so forth. What I'm after here is to learn the current state of the art before going into the darkroom to reinvent the ambrotype, as it were.

Lawrence, thank you! The pointer to the Fresson site told me most of what I need to know -- their process may be proprietary (I saw a reference in another location to them developing by the abrasive action of wet sawdust?!), but there seems no reason it can't be used with traditional carbon printing methods once properly pigmented gelatin is produced.

The better thing to do is to ask this on the carbon list. I know that some people their have already done color carbon transfer.

http://rmp.opusis.com/mailman/listinfo/carbon

 

CHristian Nze

Try this link, also.

 

http://www.turquoize.com/

Good links, thanks. Now, though, there's another question. The information about the Fresson process specifically mentions that it's a non-transfer printing process, and other things I've read about multi-color carbon printing reference transfers, but the historical and alt-process pages I've found don't seem to say anything about a transfer -- where can I find information about the differences in technique of transfer vs. non-transfer carbon printing?

 

I've gathered from skimming the Carbon Printing list archives (and reading between the lines) that transfers are done by transferring the actual gelatin layer loosened from a substrate -- glossy clay coated paper, perhaps, or plastic film. There must be a way of reliably loosening the gelatine to prevent damage during the transfer, of course; there must also be methods of reinforcing the transferred layer (perhaps one or more layers of pre-hardened gelatin under the image layer?), since I see references to transfer images being displayed with no substrate at all.

 

On a somewhat related note, is anyone aware of a more senstitive gelatin or gum process than that using potassium bichromate?

GOOD FREAKIN LORD! My autochrome project is going to be put on hold... These are AMAZING!

Ataraxia Studios in Philadelphia also does this. I had one made and it is one of the most beautiful prints I have ever seen. They also do B/W pigment prints, as well.

 

www.atxstudio.com

Let me first comment that I am a carbon printer and although I

work today mostly with monochrome I made quite a number of

three-color carbon prints in the late 80s and early 90s.

 

Three-color carbon was one of the earliest forms of making color

prints on paper. The first three-color carbon prints were made by

the French scientist Louis Ducos Du Hauron in the 1870s and

with numerous variations materials for three-color carbon and

carbro were commonly available until the mid-1950s, but

sporadically since them, and not available at all at present

(except those made for in-house use by Ataraxia). Thee-color

carbon and carbro are without a doubt the premier color printing

processes in the history of making color prints on paper. The

images consist of pigments which are much more permanent

than dye images, and real color carbon prints have an

interesting relief that give them a unique dimensional quality.

 

The traditional form of three color carbon is a subtractive

process in which cyan, magenta and yellow tissues are

sensitized with dichromate and then exposed to a UV light

source to separation negatives, blue record to yellow tissue,

green record to magenta tissue, and red record to cyan tissue.

The tissues are then developed on plastic carriers and when dry,

assembled one after the other in register on a paper base. Each

layer must first dry and the plastic peeled away before the next

layer can be added. As practiced in the past registration was

done by eye. Depending on conditions of temperature and

humidity the assembly of the reliefs took at least a full day, and

sometimes more. You can understand that this is a fairly

complicated process and this is one of the reasons it was

supplanted by dye transfer, even though color carbons are much

superior in terms of appearance and permanence.

 

Were commercial materials available today for color carbon

printing it would be somewhat easier to practice than in the past

because one could use the computer to make separations. Even

so with the many transfer operations, even when used with pin

registrations procedures, would keep color carbon a very

complicated and time consuming process, with a very long and

very steep learning curve. Even monochrome carbon printing is

not easy, about 5-10 times as complicated as pt/pd in my

opinion, and with color you have to multiply level of difficulty of

monochrome by three, and add about 100 more points for color

balance, if I may mix metaphors.

 

Fresson is different in that all of the colors are applied to one

sheet of paper, but one at a time as in making color gum prints.

For this reason the color fresson process is more similar to

color gum than to the carbon transfer processes described

above. It is not possible for an individual to make color fresson

prints because Fresson has kept the procedures secret.

However, it is possible to make color gum prints that are every

bit as rich and as detailed as fresson prints and one can find

details in the contemporary literature.

 

It is possible that sometime in the not so distant future Bostick

and Sullivan may produce color carbon materials, but as of this

date there is no commercial manufacture of color carbon

materials.

I believe that the Ataraxia Pigment Print process uses a screened negative not a continuous tone one. My guess is that they use a 400 line per inch screen ruling or an extremely fine stochastic dot. Their process sounds to me like an analog offset printing proofing process. I believe it is a derivative of such a process that was manufactured by Polaroid.

I will have to look through my magazines, but I remember an article that explained the process in detail (in an interveiw with a master prnter who currently uses this process) Suffice it to say the process is extremely complicated. A geletin substrate is appled, then exposed for one color, then washed with something which removes the exposed area. The pigment is then applied, which settles into the pits/holes in the gelatin. This process is repeated for each separation color.

 

I remember that the printer had mentined that he once used real gold pigment for a mettalic image. Pretty neat stuff, but not something I would want to try. I'm WAY too lazy.