Carbon Transfer Printing

A Step-by-Step Manual, Featuring Contemporary Carbon Printers and Their Creative Practice

Sandy King, Don Nelson, John Lockhart

• Publisher: Focal Press
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429757266
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Photography

Carbon Transfer Printing is a book about one of the earliest photographic processes that provided the first permanent printing methods, available in one form or another for over 150 years. This book reviews the extensive history of carbon transfer and related pigment processes in both monochrome and color, to serve as point source for a new carbon printer to begin to master the craft of carbon printing, as well as provide new material for experienced carbon printers so they can expand their techniques. The book includes never-before-published information on pre-sensitizing carbon tissue with newly identified compounds, information on the safe use and disposal of hexavalent chromium compounds, and simplified methods of producing 3-color carbon prints.

Carbon Transfer Printing is divided into two parts, illustrated with 175 photographs. Part One is a complete how-to on the carbon transfer process, from simple to complex, with a troubleshooting guide and an extensive chapter on digital negatives. Part Two is devoted to contemporary carbon printers who share their methods and secrets to creating their beautiful carbon prints.

Topics that the book covers are:

• Key events in carbon's history
• How to organize the carbon workplace
• Sections on necessary supplies and equipment
• A step-by-step digital method of making high quality digital negatives
• Simple and advanced methods of carbon printing
• How to make carbon tissue, including several methods of pre-sensitizing
• How to choose UV light sources for printing in carbon
• Step-by-step processing directions
• How to prepare final support papers
• Troubleshooting carbon
• Multi-layer printing to add tone, or make a full color carbon print
• Finishing and final presentation of carbon prints
• A gallery of images and advice from contemporary carbon printers

Carbon Transfer Printing is designed for both the beginning carbon enthusiast as well as for the advanced practitioner. Backed with extensive research on carbon printing from books, journals, and magazine articles from the 1800s to present day, and the extensive personal experience in carbon printing of the authors, there is enough information in this book to provide inspiration and proof of both the glorious past of carbon printmaking and its enduring importance to a new generation of image makers who value the handmade print.

PART ONE
History of the Carbon Process and Carbon Transfer Printing Step-by-Step

Chapter 1
History of the Carbon Transfer Process

Figure 1.1 Infrastructure, 16ʺ × 23ʺ single transfer on Arches Aquarelle, © Sandy King 2012

Figure 1.2 Bend of the Miño, 16ʺ × 23ʺ single transfer on Arches Aquarelle, © Sandy King 2014

Monochrome Carbon Transfer

Carbon transfer shares its roots with several other printing processes that are based on the light sensitivity of chromium salts, including gum bichromate, direct carbon processes such as Artigue and Fresson, and photogravure. It has been known since the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that chromates and dichromates, when mixed with certain organic substances, produce light sensitive emulsions.

The first documented account of the light sensitivity of chromium and chromic acid was made in 1798 by the French chemist Louis Nicolas Vauquelin, who observed that chromic acid, when combined with silver nitrate, formed a red salt that changed color with exposure to light.¹ In the next several decades four more major discoveries were made that would lead to the carbon process. In 1832 the German chemist Gustav Suckow found that an alkaline chromate reacted with light to harden an organic compound, which took on a green color on exposure to sunlight.² The first to use these discoveries for photographic purposes was the Scotsman Mungo Ponton. In 1839 Ponton coated a sheet of writing paper with a solution of potassium dichromate, placed objects on the paper and exposed it sunlight. On removing the objects he observed a brown image that resulted from a reaction between the dichromate and paper, without, however, understanding the role of the organic compound in the sizing of the paper. In 1940 Edmond Becquerel discovered that it was the colloid in the size of the paper that caused the reaction with dichromate. Becquerel applied a coating of a solution of dichromate mixed with starch to a sheet of paper. On exposure the visible image was deep blue in color, resulting from the iodine complex of the starch complex. In subsequent experimentation Becquerel found that potassium dichromate had a similar effect on a number of other organic colloids.³ The Englishman Henry Fox Talbot is generally credited in the photographic literature with the discovery of the sensitivity of gelatin and potassium dichromate, and in 1852 he acquired a British patent based on the light sensitive qualities of chromated gelatin.⁴

Alphonse Poitevin is widely credited for discovery of the earliest form of the carbon process, based on his French patent of August 27, 1855. In this patent Poitevin describes a process in which a sheet of paper is coated with a dichromated colloid solution to which has been added some coloring pigment.⁵ After exposure to sunlight the print was developed in warm water, at which point the soluble gelatin is washed away and a positive image is formed. Poitevin’s discoveries lay the theoretical foundation not only for carbon transfer but also for all of the other pigment printing processes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries based on dichromated colloid.

Carbon prints made by Poitevin’s original procedures were not capable of rendering a full range of tones. This is caused by the fact that the hardening caused by light is greatest on the surface of the colloid emulsion, least at the bottom. The result is that the image area at the top of the colloid coating is the most insoluble, while the bottom of the coating near the surface of the paper is soluble. During warm water development the soluble gelatin is washed away, often undercutting and carrying away more insoluble areas above it, the result being greater overall contrast, and irregular gradations in the highlights.

Abbé Laborde, who had observed a similar problem in experimenting with another process, explained the reason for the loss of highlight gradations in 1858. Laborde reasoned correctly that the light action begins at the upper surface of the paper but does not continue all the way to the inner surface, and therefore the halftones lose their hold on the paper and are washed away.⁶

Several solutions were proposed to solve the problem of loss of tonal gradations. C. J. Burnett proposed exposing through the back of a paper support to which was applied a pigmented gelatin coating. This method succeeded in producing smooth gradations in the highlights, but exposing through the paper degraded image sharpness and required very long exposure times. William Blair suggested the use of waxed paper and others, including Louis Ducos du Hauron, suggested the use of thin sheets of mica or celluloid as a support for the pigmented gelatin. All of these methods were successful in reproducing even gradations in the highlights, but the thickness of the substrates degraded image sharpness and increased exposure times.⁷

The first practical method for making carbon transfer prints was developed by Adolphe Fargier, and patented in 1860.⁸ The Fargier process could be used for either single or double transfer carbon and was the first method for producing high quality carbon prints with pigments that were comparable aesthetically and technically to the best silver prints. Fargier’s single transfer procedure was not unduly complicated, but gave prints with reversed orientation. However, Fargier’s double transfer process, based on a sandwich of thin gelatin and collodion, was quite fragile, limiting its use to very small photographs.

Figure 1.3 Drawing that illustrates the reason for the lack of halftones in Poitevin’s early direct carbon process, © Sam Wang 2018

Fargier coated a leveled sheet of glass with his pigmented gelatin, allowed it to dry, then exposed it to light under a negative; he then coated the film with a thick collodion. This was allowed to set but not dry. He then placed the whole in warm water which, which attached the soluble gelatin in contact with the glass, and set free the picture, which floated as a film held together by the collodion; this was caught, collodion side downward, upon a piece of paper, thus enabling it to be washed up from the back.⁹

Joseph W. Swan, who received a patent for his invention in 1864, developed the first practical system of making carbon transfer prints commercially. Although the modifications made by Swan in his patent to earlier procedures was relatively minor he made several major improvement to his invention during the first six months, as allowed by law, that made the process far less difficult. One of the major improvements was the addition of sugar to the pigmented gelatin solution, which greatly increased the pliancy of the dry carbon tissue, making it less brittle. Swan, in partnership with Mawson & Swan of Newcastle, produced materials for carbon transfer printing for a number of years.

Figure 1.4 Single transfer workflow similar to the method developed by Joseph W. Swan, © Sam Wang 2018

In 1868 Swan sold the rights of his English patent to John Robert Johnson and Ernest Edward, who established the Autotype Company.¹⁰ Autotype soon became the world’s largest producer of materials for pigment printing, and the company would continue to produce materials for carbon and photogravure printing for over 140 years, finally ending production of photogravure carbon tissue in 2009.

Johnson made several major improvements to the carbon transfer process. In 1869 he developed a practical method of producing double transfer carbon prints that gave correct image orientation. The key to this development was his discovery that once the carbon tissue was soaked in cool water it would adhere to a smooth impermeable support in development without the use of mounting cement. This discovery led to the introduction of a waterproof temporary support on which the tissue was placed for development. After development and drying the print was then transferred to a final paper support.

The second improvement made by Johnson, in a patent of 1870, was the substitution of sugar with ordinary soap, or plain potassium oleate. Johnson reasoned that while sugar had some advantages it had a major disadvantage in that carbon tissue prepared with it was too greatly affected by moisture. Soap, Johnson claimed, has all of the advantages of sugar but is less adversely impacted by moisture, and thus less likely to be damaged in warm weather.¹¹

The last major modification of the carbon process, a flexible temporary support that could be reused, was introduced in 1874 by J. R. Sawyer, the author of The A.B.C Guide to the Making of Autotype Prints in Permanent Pigments. The temporary support of Sawyer was a sheet of solid paper coated with hardened gelatin and made impermeable by a coating of shellac. Before being used the sheet was smoothed, waxed and polished.¹² In carbon printing the coated paper support was later replaced with celluloid, and eventually with more modern plastics such as acetate, polyester and polyvinyl.

Monochrome carbon transfer printing was widely practiced in Europe and in some areas of North America from the 1870s until the beginning of World War II. Even though carbon was more difficult and time consuming than other commercial processes with which it co-existed during this period, such as albumen, collodion and gelatin printing-out-papers, and gelatin developing-out-papers, it was considered by many to be the most permanent of all processes and prized by many leading professionals according to the American carbon printer A. M. Marton: “If we look at the work of the leading professionals today, we find that the pictures they take their reputation on, are printed in carbon.”¹³

The major producers of materials for carbon transfer printing up to the start of World War I were European in origin. Autotype of England was the largest supplier of carbon materials, but tissue and transfer papers were also produced on the continent by a number of firms, including Braun in France, Monckhoven in Belgium, and Hanfstaengl in Germany. At the height of the popularity of the carbon transfer process at the beginning of the twentieth century the Autotype Company supplied papers for monochrome work in some 30 or more colors, as well as other papers for duo-tone and tricolor work. The 1927 carbon tissue catalog of the Autotype Company shows that the number of available tissue colors had been greatly reduced from the earlier period, suggesting a decline in the popularity of the process during and after World War I.¹⁴

The market for carbon printing materials largely disappeared after World War II, although Hanfstaengl of Germany continued to produce small quantities of carbon tissue and transfer papers for both monochrome and three-color work until the late 1980s. In the past several decades, spurred on by the revival of alternative printing processes and the ability to easily disseminate information about the process by the Internet, there has been a notable revival of carbon printing, including some small-scale production of carbon tissue for monochrome printing.

Three-color Carbon

Three-color carbon is a contact process in which separation negatives, taken through red, green, and blue filters, are used to expose pigmented gelatin sheets of the subtractive colors. The pigmented gelatin sheets are sensitized in a dilute solution of ammonium or potassium dichromate. After exposure and development the three...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• About the Authors
• PART ONE History of the Carbon Process and Carbon Transfer Printing Step-by-Step
• PART TWO Contemporary Carbon Transfer Artists
• Appendix A Suppliers and Resources
• Appendix B Safe Practice
• Appendix C Sites with Significant Collections of Vintage Carbon Prints
• Bibliography
• Index