Project #8 - Digital Alternative Process

Daguerreotypes is an obsolete photographic process, invented in 1839,

in which a picture made on a silver surface sensitized with iodine was developed by

exposure to mercury vapor. Mercury vapor is a type of lamp using mercury which emits a very clear, intense bright light.

Cyanotypes is a photographic printing process that produces a cyan-blue print. Engineers used the
process well into the 20th century as a simple and low-cost process to produce copies of drawings,
referred to as blueprints. The process uses two chemicals: ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide.

Liquid Emulsion also known as Liquid Light or Silver Gelatin, is a silver based sensitizer designed for applying on any surface,
exposing with an enlarger and processing in conventional black & white chemistry. An emulsion is a two phase
system of immiscible liquids in which one liquid is dispersed in the other in the form of microscopic droplets.
This dispersion is achieved through the use of emulsifying agents, known as surfactants, which act as chemical
bridges between the two liquids.

Paper:

Usually what you want for this type of art is a rough type of paper, What most people use when making liquid emulsion is making their own paper so it has a finer texture and gives more depth.

Sensibilization:

To make paper suitable for printing it should be covered with the sensitive gelatin silver liquid emulsion in darkroom under the red safelight. It is a complex and multistage process, which involves only manual work. The amount of gelatin you put on is based on how long you want the picture to last.

Drying:

The paper coated with emulsion is dried in complete darkness.

Printing:

The emulsion gel is spread over both sides of a mesh screen that will be used to transfer the photo onto the canvas or paper.. Prior to the emulsion drying, your photo is printed onto the emulsion-covered mesh screen. This is done either with a super special UV-blocking ink, or with clear acetate which is a clear thin sheet.

These methods block UV waves, which is important because after your logo is applied to the screen, it goes under a UV light. When the emulsion is exposed to UV light, it hardens, except for where your photo is printed. The emulsion gel is still soft in the area that was protected from the UV light. This makes it easy to wash away, leaving a negative imprint of your photo.

Fixing and washing:

Printing with liquid emulsion process requires perfect fixing that means using of a fresher fixer and sufficiently long washing, on a canvas, if on paper it requires more washing.

Finishing:

After printing, rinsing and drying photographs should be flattened. For this they are should be placed under a press for some time. To protect prints from external damage and make black tones deeper it better to cover in a varnish