P.F.T.s, or Print Film Transparencies

Dye, unlike pigment, dissolves completely in solution (pigment-based inks leave tiny particles floating in the solution). This means that dye-based inks are entirely absorbed into the paper that they are printed on – the image is in fact a highly controlled stain. The resulting images can thus appear very slick and even, with a vast…

Paper or material-based paper type used in printing black and white images from negatives (C-type). Available in all surface finishes, this thicker paper has a high-quality texture, gives an excellent finish, and adds ‘depth’ to the image through the faint weave of the paper/fibre.

A stencil is made up for each colour of the image and put over a fine fabric mesh that is stretched over a metal frame. The coloured ink is spread over the mesh and stencil and the ink falls through the stencil to the underlying material (usually an art paper) to produce the image. The…

Toning, or toned black and white: toning images allows an artist/printer to alter the colours of a photographic print (by replacing the silver in the silver salts with another metal). Toning can be used as an aesthetic decision by the artist, or it can also be used to improve the archival properties of a print….

Also known as heliogravure, photogravure is arguably the finest photomechanical means of reproducing a photograph in large editions. Copper plates are acid-etched directly from an original silver print; the etched areas then hold differing amounts of ink in order to correspond to the tones of the original print. If prints remain untrimmed, the impression of…

C-type printing involves printing colour paper enlargements from small, colour negatives. This is the most common type of colour printing found in the high street and mini-labs.