On Wednesday I’m going to lith print for the first time in more than a year. Tory and I are going to PCNW to have some fun! Last time I did it I just grabbed a random curve off the web, applied it to my image, and tried on some old paper I had lying around. This time I’m trying to up the likelihood of success by adding some precision to the equation.
It starts with properly determining the standard print time using a Stouffer Step Wedge for a regular old gelatin silver print. Thankfully David had four 31-step wedges to lend me which made it quite a bit easier: I could expose four in one batch to save on multiple trips through the development solution.
Here’s the results for the two papers I plan on using, ADOX MCC110 and Fomatone MG Classic Warm Tone:
It’s pretty much impossible to tell in the web images, but at the time I figured the winnerwinnerchickendinner numbers were 25 seconds for the Adox and 40 seconds for the Fomatone. Amazing how different papers can have such different exposure times with everything else consistent!
With those numbers set I proceeded to do test prints of a ChartThrob greyscale calibration chart. The idea here is to figure out how differently the ink from my printer blocks light when compared to a traditional negative.
Here are scans of the resulting charts for the two papers:
Even at the smalls size you can see these aren’t so hot. It’s expected that there will be a whole lot of black squares in the bottom rows, just not so many of them. Here’s the resulting adjustment curves, as calculated by ChartThrob:
Most of the curve looks reasonable, but the really long ramp up on the left makes me think the originals were overexposed. You can see this in the scanned charts above too: almost half the chart is pure black. Based on what I’ve read I’d expect a few rows of pure black, but not that many.
It only took 45 minutes of time in the darkroom to do these tests (and another 20 doing the final wash!) so I think I’ll go back tomorrow and try again with slightly less exposure time and see what the resulting charts look like.
One other note: I also did some HSL RNP-Array tests to try and determine what ink colour I should be using, but I have to admit I have no idea how to interpret the results!
(This blog entry was originally guest-posted on Ron Martinsen’s photo blog, and was posted January 20th, 2011)
Ron once wrote the following in his second article in the Printing 101 series:
“[…] you might want to sketch out what your long-term goals are to ensure that you’ll have the space to accommodate it all. After all you’ll have an unhappy significant other when your studio becomes like mine where it is more of a mine field than a place of work due to all of the gear scattered around it!”
I laughed when I read that, because for the last year or so that’s been my print studio. Printing and photography gear was strewn everywhere, I could barely move to get to my workstation, and storage (despite the walls being lined with bookshelves) was non-existent. I was certainly able to make high quality prints for customers, but I wasn’t as productive as I could be and I certainly didn’t enjoy being in my office when I was printing.
In the fall of 2010 my wife and I embarked on a project to completely remodel our 23-year-old house. As part of that project I vowed that I would have a proper print studio when everything was over.
I’m happy to say that the remodel’s complete, I have a print studio, and I love it.
At Ron’s suggestion I thought I’d take everyone on a tour of the new space, and more importantly explain the design decisions I made and parts I used so you can incorporate some of the ideas into your own workspace.
The completed studio
Finding The Space
Even though we were remodeling the whole house my goal was to keep the expense of the studio part to a minimum. An addition just for a studio was out of the question so like many people I decided to convert one of the bedrooms over to a dedicated workspace.
Actual construction work was minimal: we removed the bedroom closet. That gave an additional 2 feet of depth to the room, for a total of 125 square feet to make my own. The carpet was removed and replaced with hardwood to make it easier to deal with dust. On the electrical side I had a dedicated 20 amp circuit installed along with a whole-house surge protector, and the ceiling lights were replaced with a square of Juno track (more on that later). I personally pulled Cat 6 and RG6 to multiple locations in the room for connectivity.
Keeping the construction costs low meant I could dump money into other things like storage, lighting, and of course more paper to print on!
The Printers
When the remodel started I only had one printer to worry about for the space: a Canon iPF5100. Of course that was before Canon started their big rebate program, and midway through the construction I became the proud owner of a new Canon iPF8300. It’s a little big. Actually, it’s a lot big.
The two printers live on opposite sides of the room. The 5100 is on some Ikea kitchen cabinets, and the 8300 is on its own stand.
The 8300 along the long wall of the room
The 5100 on the Ikea cabinets
Storage
My biggest pain in my old workspace was the complete lack of purpose-designed storage. I had walls of bookshelves which are great for books, but they’re rotten for camera gear and printing supplies. I knew from multiple discussions with Andy Biggs that proper paper storage and LOTS of flat workspace was critical to a successful print studio.
All of the storage in the studio is put together from Ikea’s Akrum line of kitchen cabinets. They’re (relatively) inexpensive and can be configured to give pretty much whatever storage you need. I designed the layout using Ikea’s Kitchen Planner software, many, many, many, times (I spent more than three months getting it perfect).
An almost-perfect layout for the studio. The big box in the top right is the Canon iPF8300. During install I made a few tweaks to the order of the cabinets along the bottom.
Even with the printers and such in the room I have over four feet of uninterrupted counter space for work. It’s already been hugely helpful when I’m packing up folio orders for shipping.
I’m still in the process of loading everything into the office and figuring out the best places to put things, but roughly speaking the drawers are for storing camera and framing gear, and the floor cabinets are for storing printing and packing supplies. Wall cabinets are for storing folio covers prior to shipping and the books I decide to keep in the studio instead of elsewhere in the house. Boxes of 17” wide roll paper go on top of the wall cabinets. Boxes of 24” and 40” rolls go on the floor under the window. Camera bags, tripods, and lighting gear go in the cabinet that sticks out under the iPF5100.
Total cost for all the cabinets was right around $1500.
Inside the primary paper storage cabinet. Yes, that’s B&W darkroom paper at the bottom!
Inside one of my lens drawers Most of my gear is still in storage from the remodel
Lighting
In my old office I’d personally replaced the lights with some basic track lighting and fixtures from Solux. In the new studio I wanted to make sure it was done right. I had an electrician come in and put a grid of Juno track around the entire room, 3’ off the wall. With Juno fixtures and 4700K 50w 36 degree bulbs from Solux I’ve got consistent and colour accurate lights in the whole space.
Of course putting light into the room is just one aspect of lighting a studio. Keeping light out is another. The only window in the office is covered with a custom top-down/bottom-up (TDBU) light-blocking cellular shade. With the TDBU design I can open the top of it a bit to let some natural light in while maintaining privacy, and when I need to do colour-accurate print work I can close the shade and keep all the stray light out. The shade cost $230 and was worth every penny.
Custom light-blocking window shade on the studio’s only window
Print Viewing
Another irritation in my old office was the complete lack of print viewing facilities. I basically had a folding table from Costco with a Solux fixture pointed straight down at it. Not exactly useful.
Conveniently, my friend Rob down in Berkeley, CA (owner of the mighty fine The Lightroom print studio) solved this problem for me when he figured out a way to display my folio covers prospective clients. By hanging a big piece of galvanized sheet metal on the wall you can make an instant print viewing booth.
My print viewing facilities
The metal is a 4×8’ piece of 24ga. galvanized steel from Metal Supermarkets, and only cost $55. The hanging system is Click Rail manufactured by AS Hanging Systems, using two pieces of wall track and four secure self-gripping hooks for earthquake protection. I purchased the rail and hooks from Frame Central locally, but if necessary the parts can be ordered directly from AS Hanging. Prints are attached to the board using pin magnets from Super Magnet Man. All told the setup cost less than $200 and can hold prints as tall as my iPF8300 can produce.
Lighting on the board is provided by four Solux fixtures, and I still have to dig out the light meter to do some fine-tuning for even coverage (ah, memories of Black and White 3!).
Yes, I’m Happy!
So there you have it! A quick tour through my new print studio. I’ve had it up and running for a little over three weeks now and am very happy with the result. I still need to load a lot more stuff in, but so far I’ve barely made a dent in my total storage capacity. Print viewing is vastly improved over my old configuration. And, most importantly, I feel productive.
Hopefully you found the tour through the studio informative. If you have any questions or comments please post them using the comment form below and I’ll do my best to respond.
Update: Six months in
Six months later I’m still loving the configuration. The print viewing board is by far my favourite part of the space. It’s so much fun to hang prints on it and just step back and evaluate. You can see another photo of it on the front page of my printing site, Dane Creek Printing.
The storage is great. The only downside is not having a pretty place to store rolls wider than 17”. Right now they’re all stacked under the window, and it’s a pretty big pile.
The desk space is a bit tight as well. I purposefully went minimal with the desk area, but in hindsight it doesn’t really leave room for my Wacom table. I rarely use it, but when I do I wish I had a bit more space. I could fix this by putting the desk under the window and then standing the rolled paper up where the desk currently sits. Perhaps someday!
Canon 1D Mark III with 70-200 f/2.8L IS II. 110mm, ISO 1600, 1/400 sec @ f/2.8.
I arrive at KeyArena 1.5 hours before tipoff. That may seem like a long time before the action starts, but it takes time to review the requested shots for the game, plan out where I need to be for the various timeouts, and check for any last minute changes to the event script. It also gives me a chance to double-check the camera gear, format the media cards, and get everything ready for shooting.
While I’m doing all those things the teams are warming up on the court. I always keep an eye out during these early warm-up sessions for any non-action shots that might help tell the overall story of the game. On Friday night I lucked out: Lin Dunn, the current head coach of the Indiana Fever (and the first ever coach for the Seattle Storm) was sitting courtside with Lauren Jackson. Coach Dunn was LJ’s first coach in the WNBA. The two of them were just chatting and having a good laugh.
My problem? I was also at the courtside seats, just a little farther down the row, and the angle was all wrong to capture the moment. This is why I wear sneakers to game day! I ran for the other side of the court, aimed the camera, and took a burst of images. By the time I was shooting LJ was already standing, but the all-important smiles were still there.
Canon EOS-1D Mark III with 24-70 f/2.8L. 24mm, ISO 1600, 1/400 sec. @ f/2.8.
A key part of photographing for the Seattle Storm is capturing the whole game experience. It’s not just in-game action shots that matter. It’s getting photos of pre-game rituals, fans, the 4th quarter Doppler train, varied halftime entertainment, and all the other little things that make attending a Storm game special.
Halftime shows are always fun since they are usually community groups or sports teams that are excited to be performing in front of a large audience at the Key. The June 10th game was a great example: the halftime show was the Laurelhurst Unicycle and Juggling Team.
Since I’m a firm believer that the best shots are up-close and personal, I decided to shoot from on the court instead of the sidelines once they started their routine. I zeroed in on the three boys juggling and went up close to get a photo.
Next thing I knew I was surrounded by a fleet of girls on unicycles. Trapped!
I snapped a few shots and managed to get the above photo, my favourite so far this season. Why? It’s the memory of the girls on the unicycles yelling “HI PHOTOGRAPHY MAN!” as they circled around me while I tried to get a reasonable picture!
Saturday, June 4th, was opening day for the Seattle Storm at KeyArena. It was also the 2010 WNBA Championship Ring Ceremony, and a nationally televised game on ABC. All of those combined meant the Key would be packed, and that it was a great opportunity to take a nice photo of the crowd watching the game.
During dress rehearsal the Thursday prior I had the idea of shooting down from the upper bowl at tip-off. Since according to the schedule of events I’d have less than two minutes to get from the court (for photos of the players being introduced) to the upper bowl I figured I’d better prepare ahead of time. First I took a test shot at the dress rehearsal to ensure I had the camera settings locked in and my shooting position sorted out. Here’s what the test shot looked like:
Canon 5D Mark II, 24-70 2.8L @ 35mm. ISO 800, 1/200 sec. @ f/2.8.
The framing looked good and the light was right. All it needed was fans. Lots and lots of fans!
On game day I did another trial run, this time with the assistance of Amanda (one of the Storm staff). We practiced handing off my second camera body on the court so it wouldn’t be bouncing on my hip as I raced to the upper bowl. She also timed my run at 50 seconds. Plenty of time!
Then it was time for the actual shoot. The handoff went smoothly. I raced to the upper bowl. Out of breath I positioned for the shot. And waited. And waited. And waited. Ah, nationally televised games! Finally ABC was ready to go, the ref tossed the ball, and I got my shot:
I think it looks much better with fans and players in it!
Today was awesome. I got the chance to use a fancy scanning electron microscope (SEM) at the University of Washington Nanotech User Facility thanks to the GEL 2011 Conference, Dee Breger, Alec Pakhomov, and Lindsey Maier .
What did I scan? Prints, of course! I took with me an inkjet print on Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk, a carbon print, a salt print, and a cyanotype. We managed to scan the inkjet, carbon, and salt prints.
I was hoping to be able to see ink particles on paper, and I did! I was also hoping to get a good view of the carbon layers from the carbon print, but in hindsight we used the wrong part of the print as a sample so it was tough to see the carbon specifically, but we did see something else.
At this point you’re likely saying “this post is useless without photos!” and it is. So here’s photos. Lots and lots of photos.
Lindsey, sticking the inkjet sample onto one of the little sample posts prior to coating.
Three samples loaded into the chamber that will coat them with a gold/palladium so they scan properly. From left, clockwise, is the salt print, inkjet print, and carbon print.
The machine that does the coating. How can you not love a machine called a “sputter coater” that has a “sputter” setting? This machine was a little touchy. Lindsey explained that if you let the milliamps accidentally bounce off 50 you blow a fuse in the back of the machine and then have to scrounge to find a new one. She didn’t blow the fuse. Way to go Lindsey 🙂
The coating in progress. The purple glow is plasma in the vacuum chamber. She’s twiddling knobs and pressing buttons to kick the coating off.
The scanning electron microscope.
In hindsight I should have taken this photo with my finger in the picture, in the act of “pressing” the buttons 🙂
Loading the samples in the SEM. From left, clockwise, is salt (coated), salt (uncoated), carbon (uncoated), inkjet (coated), and carbon (coated). The uncoated ones were to see if there was enough silver or carbon inherent in the prints to scan without the coating, but they didn’t work well.
Always nice to see Microsoft represented 🙂 The software on the computer screen is what we used to do all the scanning.
Ok, so you’re probably saying “this thread is useless without pictures FROM THE FREAKING SEM!”. And you’re right. So here’s pictures from the SEM:
Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk with a black and white image (printed in colour mode) from a Canon iPF5100. On the right is the paper edge where it was cut with scissors. On the left the things that look like ikura are ink blobs. What’s all that bright white stuff in the middle? More on that later…
Here’s a better view of the ink on the paper. I’m assuming all the marks under it are light scratches on the surface of the paper.
Zooming in closer still to get a really good look at the ink dots. At this point we wondered what the ink was made of, so we switched over to another computer that can do a plot of the elements present. Here’s the plot:
Looks like aluminum! We did a similar scan off one of the ink bubbles and got zero aluminum, so I’d say that’s pretty definitive.
This is a higher magnification view of the weird white stuff on the edge where we cut the paper. Unfortunately I don’t seem to have a screen shot of the element plot we did, but it came up with spikes of barium and oxygen. Baryta, anyone?
The salt print didn’t produce any images that were that interesting, but the above is from the carbon print. It’s the border between where the carbon image is and the base paper (top right). This is the first image we scanned and we couldn’t figure out what on earth these things were. I went back and looked at the original print and it was obvious: they’re bubbles. You can clearly see them all around the edge of the print. I imagine they were formed when the gelatin was being washed away.
The trip to the lab was awesome fun, and a huge thank you to Lindsey for patiently sitting with me to prep the paper and then drive the SEM as we nosed around the samples. Did I mention it was a ton of fun? Because it was!
Canon 5D Mark II with 70-200 f/2.8L IS II. 168mm, ISO 100, 30 sec. @ f/32.
David, Vlad, Tory, and I are in Newport, Oregon, for four days of ocean shooting. That’s the good news. The bad news is the weather: flat, overcast, skies and lots and lots of rain. We did manage to get out around noon today and this was my best shot from a slim set of possibilities.
It doesn’t reproduce particularly well on the blog but none of the highlights are blown out. Promise!
