Postcard Printing: Jigs, Easels, or other suggestions for silver gelatin postcards

[Corran]

I've had a lot of folks say I should make postcards and I am moving forward with this idea a bit. One of the things I'm trying to figure out is a good method of quickly and efficiently printing postcards full bleed with a 4x5 negative for contact printing or enlarging onto the postcard, along with a stencil for text. The stencil will be a sheet of transparency printed with either black text to make white letters on a black background or printed in all black with transparent letters for the opposite.

The hard part for me is to line up the text on the postcard along with the negative or with the enlargement in a consistent and repeatable pattern. Crooked text or overlapping the negative would look bad. So how was this done "back in the day" when it was more common? If I want to make 50-100 postcards I don't want to faff around too much trying to line things up manually.

Easels give me white edges, contact printing with what I have will be a nightmare to line up consistently, especially if projecting an image from the enlarger rather than contact printing. So looking for a better way, even if I have to make it myself. One idea is some wood with a 4x6 depression routed out of it slightly, with glass on top, to fit in the postcard paper with negative/transparency cut to size. Ideas? Or is there already a product out there for this?

[Mark Sampson]

Ilford made Multigrade postcard paper- with printing on the back for the address and message.
I have an open box from three or four years ago. Perhaps it's still available?
I made a jig in a contact printing frame to line things up. Not really a problem, just a little practice needed to get it right.
And people liked getting them in the mail.

[Corran]

Sorry if I wasn't clear, yep I know about the postcards from Ilford, I have a few boxes on their way to me as my current box is just about out. Just working on my plan of attack for printing them. I also need to "pitch" this to various local places. The point is to sell them.

[DMS206]

on a lot of old negatives or glass plates I have seen, the photographer used to write directly on the negative.

[John Layton]

Have not printed postcards...but years ago I printed "postcard sized" (reductions from a 5x7 negative) limited edition invites for a show. I chose a negative which required minimal dodging/burning and created a couple of masks for this - also created a mask to overlay my 8x10 easel so I could print four images on one sheet - moving the masked easel visually for each image...using the red filter over the enlarger lens to line things up - then gang-processing the sheets in groups of ten. Then laid dry mount tissue over the back of each...tacked behind each image then trimmed each image to size - then aligned each onto notecard sized card stock which had been pre-printed with text, then lined up a number of these and gang-dry mounted them, then folded to fit into note-card sized envelopes. Signed/numbered each copy...they looked great!

To be honest...if I were to do this today I'd seriously think of doing this digitally - but then again...if you are selling these as "fine art," you should probably think of some way (such as I've outlined above) to create truly analog prints.

At this point I've come full circle on this...and will likely create another "limited edition" series of actual analog prints as I've outlined above - specifically for folks who visit my arts/craft fair booth who may not quite feel ready to go for a large print, but who want to take something home with them - hopefully to be sufficiently inspired by the little print to motivate them to eventually purchase a larger print (or to at least create some interest among their friends!).

Good luck!

[Jac@stafford.net]

Corran, a friend of mine made postcards to send to former and potential clients to promote his work. It was effective!

Just my two bits worth - today this is a job for digital printing. Even instant printing shops offer it.

[Fred L]

I made postcards (Ilford and old Kodak fiber postcards) with a thin border as it was easier to do and also I liked the look for the images I had. Thought about enlarging for full bleed and would also use a contact frame for that.

On that topic, I was planning on using a Patterson contact printer, probably secure it to the baseboard with tape or a jig so it doesn't move. To make it repeatable, I would have marked the outline of the paper on paper that is placed under the photo paper to be exposed, so it's always in the same spot.

If you wanted a mask with text, I would just tape that to the glass and so when closed, it would sandwich the paper. Again, this *should* make it easy to bang off a run of postcards that are identical.

[Corran]

Some good ideas guys! John, I don't know why I never thought to use a red filter over the lens for lining it up!!! Great!

Jac, you are 100% correct that this kinda thing is more suited to digital printing. But I'm stubborn and want to do it my way . But seriously, my conception here is a limited-run, artist proof for festivals. I talked to someone with the CoC here about postcards at the visitor's center and that would be more of a digital printing thing due to cost/scale. I also want to pitch a "festival postcard" for some of the larger fests here - say, 100 postcards, first come first serve, just like they do with t-shirts and other souvenirs. Art Fest 2018.

Fred, taping the stencil/mask is definitely what I was thinking on that end, as long as I can get the paper in the right place. The only contact printer I have is unsuitable for this though for a couple reasons. Firstly it stupidly has a slant to it, front to back, so enlargements would have a tilt to them. I might just take the thick glass off of it and build my own somehow.

[Tin Can]

I had a 5X7 contact printer with internal lighting. It also had a roll film adapter, fit any size film in a roll.

I think it was used to make Holiday cards with images. I gave it away.

The last print exchange here, I contact printed many 5X7 quickly in an 8X10 contact printer. Again internal lamps.

How about a truly unique process. https://photogravure.com/

[blue4130]

I did this a couple years back, I bought a cheap picture frame to use as the contact frame, worked well enough. Got a little tedious and tiresome after a while.