Black and White book printing, what is the best quality option?

[Tin Can]

I found that Japanese push drill for $64.50, with 9 bits.

http://apps.webcreate.com/ecom/catal...roductID=18830

Talas. They're in Brooklyn, I'll be making a trip out there.

Good shopping! I get lazy and rely on Amazon too often.

Thanks!

[Larry Kellogg]

So, I'm going to return to my original question, which was: "How can I make some duotone prints of my photographs in order to create a book?". Binding prints is cool, but RC paper does not always get a print to where I want it, in terms of artistic interpretation, and fibre prints are too stiff to be used as pages in a book.

It struck me that perhaps the solution lies in front of me, and that I know how to make this happen from what I have already done, but I could be wrong. I've taken a letterpress class at Cooper Union, so, I'm familiar with using a Vandercook letterpress machine. Setting type is quite tedious, but I can do it. I know that the teacher of the class rents time on his presses at The Arm, in Brooklyn: http://www.thearmnyc.com

Now, in letterpress class, we talked about how plates were made and used them to print on the machines. The plates are made out of polymer. Now, I never got a plate made for class because I don't have any drawing skills, and everybody else was a graphic designer who could draw. Instead, I contented myself with setting type.

But, it seems to me all I have to do to print my photographs is to scan my prints, run duotone separations in Photoshop, get two plates made for each photograph, and run one with black, and one with Pantone 11 Gray, as specified by LensWorks in that original article I posted on this thread. Plates can be ordered from Boxcar press: https://www.boxcarpress.com/letterpress-plates/

Am I completely off my nut here? Can I print my own book in this way? I know it will take forever, and that it is a lot of work, but is my reasoning about the process sound?

This page (http://arttattler.com/archiveprintedpicture.html) on different printing techniques is fascinating, and shows a letterpress duotone print.

[Moopheus]

Maybe this is what you want to do:

http://polymerphotogravure.com/

[mdm]

I have thought about that too, but how do you register the second impression, or third in the case of tritone.
I am intertested in photopoymer gravure, but its not an easy or inexpensive process to learn and get set up for. There is a big difference between a good and a bad print, so there is a lot of time required to master the process. And you are going to have to delve into the digital world to make a plate, thats because a positive transparency is required and it is much easier to do that consistently with a printer than in the darkroom. So in the end inkjet printed books may make the most sense.

[Larry Kellogg]

I have thought about that too, but how do you register the second impression, or third in the case of tritone. Thats why I am intertested in photopoymer gravure, but its not an easy or inexpensive process to learn and get set up for. There is a big difference between a good and a bad print, so there is a lot of time required to master the process. And you are going to have to delve into the digital world to make a plate, thats because a positive transparency is required and it is much easier to do that consistently with a printer than in the darkroom. So in the end inkjet printed books may make the most sense.

;-) I'm not doing inkjet, even if it makes the most sense. I don't like the look of photographs printed on inkjet printers. Besides, I sold my high end inkjet printer, an Epson 3880, because it was more trouble than it was worth. Of course, I know a lot of people love those printers and the output, this is just my opinion.

The letterpress machines are set up to allow for accurate registration of photopolymer plates, so that you can run multiple inks. You run your first plate against all your pages with one ink, thoroughly clean the machine, kind of a pain but not that bad, and then you run the pages through with your second plate. It's not as daunting as it sounds, but it is time consuming.

I only have to deal with the digital world and Photoshop in terms of scanning the prints and making the separations. My scans are positives, so, I'm not sure what you mean about requiring a positive transparency. I send the files off to Boxcar for the actual production of the photopolymer plates.

Am I missing some big gotcha? I sent a note off to the letterpress guy and will get his take on this approach.

[adelorenzo]

That sounds like an amazing idea. If you do end up trying it please post about it.

[Larry Kellogg]

That sounds like an amazing idea. If you do end up trying it please post about it.

Thanks, I'm going to give it a try. I'm a little confused about how to create the Photoshop files to send to Boxcar, and whether I can produce two plates for duotone printing, and if so, how to do it and what to send them. I haven't converted to duotones in Photoshop, can I just turn off one layer or the other and save a file each time, in order to send two separate files to them?

This page: https://www.boxcarpress.com/file-preparation/ only mentions half-tones, which means one color is the paper.

It looks like 133 lines per inch is the highest resolution, so the output will not be a Salto 600 line screen, LOL. It's just an experiment, and certainly not the fastest way of printing anything, but since when have LF members ever been interested in the fastest way to do something? ;-)

[djdister]

Thanks, I'm going to give it a try. I'm a little confused about how to create the Photoshop files to send to Boxcar, and whether I can produce two plates for duotone printing, and if so, how to do it and what to send them. I haven't converted to duotones in Photoshop, can I just turn off one layer or the other and save a file each time, in order to send two separate files to them?

This page: https://www.boxcarpress.com/file-preparation/ only mentions half-tones, which means one color is the paper.

It looks like 133 lines per inch is the highest resolution, so the output will not be a Salto 600 line screen, LOL. It's just an experiment, and certainly not the fastest way of printing anything, but since when have LF members ever been interested in the fastest way to do something? ;-)

It appears you would create a duotone image file in Photoshop (easy enough to do), save as a Tiff file at 600 or so dpi, and just send that to them. As they will create the plates, they should be able to create the two needed plates from your duotone image. If you were creating the plates yourself, there is a "Separations" output setting in the Photoshop print dialog which outputs the color separations necessary from the duotone (or whatever) image file.

[Oren Grad]

But, it seems to me all I have to do...

What David (mdm) said. All you have to do is learn a new, very demanding craft, from scratch.

[Kimberly Anderson]

Indeed...if you think you will be *saving* money (not to mention time...), by learning the photogravure process vs. having a limited edition book printed by a reputable publisher, you are sadly mistaken.

They will look GORGEOUS if you stick with it long enough to master the medium, but wow, it's gonna be a steep learning curve. I wish you well.