An exploration of low relief structure printing through the development of a novel full colour continuous tone plastographic printing method

Mc Callion, Peter

Abstract

A traditional halftone print is created by translating the image into a series of dots of various sizes that convey the illusion of tone when printed. The carbon process and the Woodburytype process are a special kind of continuous tone image known as photoplastography. Like other continuous tone images they contain no screen or dot structure when printed, but unlike them, they are generated as a physical image relief rendered by light and a photosensitive gelatine. The relief generates the tones by varying the thickness of the pigmented gelatine thus providing a superior tonal range to halftoned images. Over the century, print technology evolved to become faster and cheaper, resulting in these beautiful, time consuming and expensive processes to fall out of use. Whilst it was possible to develop the carbon process as a full polychromatic print and is still in use today. The Woodburytype was unable to make this transition and has remained monochromatic and this was one of the reasons for its rapid obsolescence.

Citation

Mc Callion, P. (2014, October). An exploration of low relief structure printing through the development of a novel full colour continuous tone plastographic printing method. Paper presented at Fifth International Conference on the Image

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Fifth International Conference on the Image
• Start Date: Oct 29, 2014
• End Date: Oct 30, 2014
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2014
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: photomechanical printing, low relief printing, continuous tone imagery, plastography
• Publisher URL: http://cgpublisher.com/conferences/302/proposals/329/index_html
• Related Public URLs: http://ontheimage.com/the-conference
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : Fifth International Conference on the Image