Printing an 8 x 10 or 6 x 8 on wood, how to?

How can I print a quality high resolution photo on piece of wood?

 

The illusion in my head is that I know how to take a photo of a person. Something that takes time to learn, at least for me. I do not want to give a 2 inch photo to a person. I would rather give a 6 inch by 8 inch photo to a person. 8 x 10 would be better. Do they have to be printed on Fuji photo paper? Is there a way to print a high resolution photograph on something more permanent? A piece of wood, for example.

 

I travel to some isolated areas. Places far from a photo lab. If I knew how, I would print a photo on a wooden plank and give it to some people as a gift. Wood sounds good to me. I posted my printing question in the beginners forum for a reason.

 

SIimple. (is it,) I want to carry some kind of a printer, without a car, and give the gift of a photo. Not a photo, a nice high quality photo.

Some of my friends live a long long ways from a photo printing shop.

If I knew how, I would give them a photo as a gift.

I would rather have something more lasting than a paper print. Wood? Something?

 

This girl lives in Arara Colombia. You get there in a canoe. What kind of a print should she have for a gift

Edited November 1, 2019 by chrismitchell

Man portable, presumably no reliance on mains electricity, gives a print that is more durable than tissue paper...

 

You haven't specified if film or digital.

 

 

Digital:

 

Canon Selphy. Dye-sub printer, photo store quality prints, battery pack is an optional extra. About the size of a thick hard-back book. Can print from laptop, camera (pictbridge) or direct from memory card (SD). Postcard (6x4) sized prints.

 

Fujifilm Instax Share. Prints to Instax instant film, battery powered, pocketable, about the size of a pack of cards, bigger for square version. Print from phone or Fujifilm cameras. Instax Mini (credit card) or Instax Square (square credit card) size prints.

 

zInk. Various, like the Fuji printer, but prints to zInk thermal paper, credit card size prints.

 

 

 

Film:

 

You'll have to process it yourself in the field, can be done. Assuming you can't lug an enlarger around (portable ones are the size of a suitcase), your best bet to make big prints would be to shoot 4x5 or 8x10 sheet film and contact print it.

 

So you'd need: View camera (can be nice and light), film slides, a changing bag and some way of processing, ideally some sort of rotary drum that you can operate by hand, paper and a contact printing frame, plus chemistry.

 

That's still quite a load to lug around!

 

 

 

Personally, i'd go with the Instax, but that's an easy choice as I use Fuji cameras. The prints are small, but durable (think Polaroid) and the printer is small enough to not add much bulk. Only 10 prints though, a spare film pack is almost as big as the printer.

 

I'm just waiting to see if Fuji have any plans to release an version that uses the larger Instax Wide film, if they did, !'d buy it, no question.

 

 

(I own a Canon Selphy, Instax cameras and a suitcase type enlarger, among much other junk)

 

 

 

 

All those are paper prints, though the Instax is more plasticky.

 

You can wet print on to just about anything, glass, wood, metal, but difficult without a darkroom

 

there are ways to print digitally on to other materials, but the printers aren't portable.

Edited November 1, 2019 by steve_gallimore|1

Also, unless you do it mostly for the "fun", there are many printing services that do prints on all kinds of material: canvas, metal, wood, ceramics, etc.

 

Considering the alternatives, they're not that expensive.:)

 

Google™ for "photo prints on ..."

 

e.g., Wood Prints - Photo Prints on Wood | Custom Wood Printing

Printing on wood is an option with inkjets. Mimaki as a manufacturer come to mind, but their machinery is to be forklifted from a truck, (not just to get driven around by car), prints moderate resolution (which is fine for billboards or such). Prints tend to smell rather strong and in ready state the printer does some self cleaning routine every couple of hours, to prevent clogging.

So in simple words: if you want anything portable beyond Polaroid / Instax: go for an optionally battery powered dye-sub printer like Canon Selphy doing postcards. Otherwise: Most printing services seem mail order; so why not utilize them; they should ship anywhere. - I'm no math genius but a Selphy print is about 35ct materials so a lab has a chance to be cheaper.

 

Durability concerns: Some airbrush artists told me about their nighttmare project to work on motorcycle gas tanks. Problem there: airbrushing gets usually done with water based inks. Spilled gasoline is a quite agressive solvent, so it has to be kept away from the painting. The solution were layers and layers of clear coat covered with finally automotive clearcoat applied by an out of house professional. I doubt that anything "printing on" can work much differently. So you shouldn't have too optimistic illusions about such techniques. Am I the only one with cameras on which silkscreened labels / inscriptions wear off? How much abuse can "fancily printed on paper / cardboard" really take? Partially applied UV hardened clearcoat looks nice for a while but is nothing to survive the handling a library or school book might face. Cellophane applied on printed cardboard seems to peel off after a while too.

 

Wet darkroom on the go? - Yes you could pack something producing 8x10" on B&W paper into an attachee case. But you'll have to jump through hoops, to find a place where you can operate such a kit at least by night and it takes time & experience / dedication. - I'd rather become the kind of polyglott, who is able to online / mailorder prints in 3 or more foreign languages, if I am not travelling very conventionally and big style. - Early photographers had horse drawn darkroom wagons, so I asume a motorized camper or a yacht could be a substitute for those but running such vehicles is beyond my horizon. (It seems doable when you are 125% dedicated but there will be a convenience price to be paid.)

 

Biggest suggestion to make: Figure out how your subjects should be able to reacquire your image files, in the future, 12 or 20 years from now.

Lot to think about.

I will read this again tomorrow

most likely the following day also.

I suppose there are lots of ways above, but I think easiest is to dry-mount onto the wood.

 

When I was in high school, we had a neat little saw with a very narrow blade.

 

I dry-mounted a print onto masonite, then cut it into puzzle shape.

(This is little kid puzzle shape, the blade wasn't narrow enough for grown-up

puzzle sized.)

 

I now have an actual dry mount press (45 years later) but at the time I did it

with a household iron.

 

The wood probably should be pretty smooth to stick well.

Printing colour directly onto wood doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. The grain and colour of wood will totally mute the printed colours, unless the wood is white-primed. But then if you're going to prepare the wood by painting, you might just as well follow Glen's suggestion and simply stick a conventional paper print onto a wooden tablet.

 

What's wrong with a paper print? Because paper is mostly processed wood pulp anyway.

 

I suppose in monochrome you could devise a copper-etching process to produce a relief plate, which could then be heated to scorch an image onto wood. That's a lot of trouble and a steep learning curve.

 

You might also want to read up on the 'Woodburytype' process, which produced a dyed gelatine matrix that could be deposited onto almost any flat surface. Again it's a lost art that needs a big investment of time to revive.

Edited November 13, 2019 by rodeo_joe|1

There was a previous thread on this subject - printable wood veneers are available - Link Printing on Micro-Thin Wood Veneer | Cards of Wood. There is also an outfit called Rockland Colloids - Link - Rockland Colloid.