Platinum prints from digital negatives

[Michael Lloyd]

The following three images were made at Don Messec's Making Art Safely Platinum printing workshop that I took last week. The negatives were created from digital prints using the new PiezoDN system from Jon Cone of Inkjet Mall. By now most people are familiar with his Piezography inks. PiezoDN is the newest iteration of that. Once the negative is made and dried the Platinum process isn't any different than the historic process. Hopefully this is ok here.

Scanning is kind of hard on the prints imho but these are close. They are the first platinum (or wet for that matter, not counting when I was about 8) that I've made. The process of learning has begun

[koraks]

If these are your first tries and the scans are a faithful depiction of the real prints, then I'd say there's very little room for improvement - if any at all! They look perfect to me.

[Tin Can]

Nice work!

[Michael Lloyd]

The scanner (Epson 10000XL) isn't "color managed" but the monitor (color managed) and print look pretty close when I put the print beside it. The monitor is a little darker but not much

During the course of the workshop (5 days) we dialed in the process of making the negative, coating the paper, and making the print. In my case I brought my little Epson 1430 printer and dialed it in too. I also brought my tabletop exposure unit and dialed it in. The PiezoDN system is fairly new and Don chose to show us that rather than "last year's" method of making a negative so there was a little time spent on that. We learned to brush rather than use a coating rod. I made 3 versions of the first one (pier) and the scan is the third version from the final day. The other two have one previous version and the scans are from the final day. Once you get a good negative, paper coating, and exposure correct the print is the reward. Sounds like photography doesn't it?

I was never very good with film but I always enjoyed using the camera. Other than a brief experience with a Sears-Roebuck darkroom kit when I was a kid I haven't had the pleasure of working in a darkroom. Then digital came along and rekindled my interest in photography. I got pretty manic about learning to make a good digital print and spent about 5 years and a couple of dollars on workshops for that. But this... making a wet print... is the best experience I've had with photography. I like the digital negative process but I think my 4x5 and 5x7 will be seeing more use too...

Thank you. It was a lot of fun

[Christopher Barrett]

Very cool. I'm doing a similar workshop in two weeks at Renaissance Press. Really looking forward to it!

[joncone@cone-editions.com]

Hi Michael,

Was Don able to teach you how to use my PiezoDN system to make Pt/Pd prints that match your screen display? Did you do the ICC portion of the process that matches screen gamma?

best,

Jon

The following three images were made at Don Messec's Making Art Safely Platinum printing workshop that I took last week. The negatives were created from digital prints using the new PiezoDN system from Jon Cone of Inkjet Mall. By now most people are familiar with his Piezography inks. PiezoDN is the newest iteration of that. Once the negative is made and dried the Platinum process isn't any different than the historic process. Hopefully this is ok here......

[D. Bryant]

The following three images were made at Don Messec's Making Art Safely Platinum printing workshop that I took last week. The negatives were created from digital prints using the new PiezoDN system from Jon Cone of Inkjet Mall. By now most people are familiar with his Piezography inks. PiezoDN is the newest iteration of that. Once the negative is made and dried the Platinum process isn't any different than the historic process. Hopefully this is ok here.

Scanning is kind of hard on the prints imho but these are close. They are the first platinum (or wet for that matter, not counting when I was about 8) that I've made. The process of learning has begun

So you are making pure platinum prints? Or a mixture of palladium and platinum. What kind of paper did you guys print with?

[Michael Lloyd]

Hi Michael,

Was Don able to teach you how to use my PiezoDN system to make Pt/Pd prints that match your screen display? Did you do the ICC portion of the process that matches screen gamma?

best,

Jon

We did everything but the ICC profile Jon. There was an issue with part of it that I didn't quite follow. Don and Walker were working through it. But that's a good point, the scans I posted aren't as good as they could be (very close though) because the last step (ICC profile) wasn't completed.

[QUOTE=D. Bryant;1342792]

The following three images were made at Don Messec's Making Art Safely Platinum printing workshop that I took last week. The negatives were created from digital prints using the new PiezoDN system from Jon Cone of Inkjet Mall. By now most people are familiar with his Piezography inks. PiezoDN is the newest iteration of that. Once the negative is made and dried the Platinum process isn't any different than the historic process. Hopefully this is ok here.

Scanning is kind of hard on the prints imho but these are close. They are the first platinum (or wet for that matter, not counting when I was about 8) that I've made. The process of learning has begun

TEQUOTE]
B
So you are making pure platinum prints? Or a mixture of palladium and platinum. What kind of paper did you guys print with?

Apologies. Yes, Platinum Palladium. Bear in mind that Don's business is called Making Art Safely. So the developer wasn't heated. We used the safest formulations that we could. You'll know what this means without explanation:

Pd - 26
Pt - 6
Fe#1 - 32
Tween - 1

Paper: Arches Platine, 2006 paper not last years paper. I have a box of 8.5 x 11 Arches Platine that I bought last year. I wish I had bought the earlier version (more texture) of the 22x30 but I am in no way disappointed with the Arches Platine I used and have now ordered in 22x30.

[Vaughn]

What type of camera was used to create the the original image?

[Michael Lloyd]

What type of camera was used to create the the original image?

It was 35mm DSLR (digital). I have a 5x7 and 4x5 and plan to make contact prints but I don't have a negative that I like well enough to try the process. Yet. Even then, I will scan the negative and create a negative from the digital file.