How is printing on chromium material done?

[Justan]

I was in a gallery a couple of days ago and saw a really awesome color image done on what appeared to be a chromium material. The luminance of the piece was eye catching, even from across the room.

Does anyone know how this is done?

Thanks!!

[bill t.]

There are lots of papers out there that are claimed to be "metallic."  Kodak Professional Endura Premier Metallic Paper and BC Vibrance Metallic both produce that kind of effect, Vibrance Metallic being a little more extreme.  But it's just so not my style.

[Justan]

Thanks Bill!

But this isn’t printed on paper, accordingly it’s printed on chrome covered metal.

Here is a place that Mr. Google lead me to that appears to do similar work: http://www.magnachrome.com/

I know there has been discussion here about printing on aluminum, as exemplified by the following thread at the other end of this link:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=56843.msg460654#msg460654

…but I don’t know if it’s the same process as used for printing on a chrome covered alloy.

The print I saw at the gallery was overwhelmingly ordinary. It was of a painted fire hydrant, but due to being printed on chrome, the luminance was about a 18 on a scale of 1-10.

The artist was asking $1,600 (!!!) for a roughly 16x20 with rounded corners.

[bill t.]

Thanks Justan.

My one complaint about the metallic prints I have seen (which may exceed a dozen in number!) is that the highlights have appeared dazzlingly bright, but rather tonally blank in proportion to the contrast in other parts of the image.  That's also a problem with face mount.  If you're gonna use super snappy mediae, you had better get those danged highlights separated.

Of course, a lot of that snappy look still comes down to the special magic Spotlights bring to any displayed print.  As I transition to mega-glossy canvases I have been honestly telling my clients that nooklights and track lighting are what they need to reproduce the look they see at the gallery, and it's not been a sales killer.

Would be interested to see how long it takes that rounded-corner, $1600, 16x20 to sell.  There is a ready market for novelty art, and that kind of stuff may just be on the tip of a roll.  Just like black velvet art was.  Anybody know where I can get a trial roll of inkjet receptive black velvet?  It could be the next big thing after Chrome.

[Justan]

> My one complaint about the metallic prints I have seen (which may exceed a dozen in number!) is that the highlights have appeared dazzlingly bright, but rather tonally blank in proportion to the contrast in other parts of the image. 

The vendor says the works that limit the amount of the color “white” works the best. I’m sure it would take some experimenting. As I wrote, the subject of the one I saw was a painted fire hydrant.

> As I transition to mega-glossy canvases I have been honestly telling my clients that nooklights and track lighting are what they need to reproduce the look they see at the gallery, and it's not been a sales killer.

Really? What canvas are you using? I agree that lighting is everything for presentation.

> Would be interested to see how long it takes that rounded-corner, $1600, 16x20 to sell. 

I dunno. I do know that at another galley some prints on heavily overpriced aluminum (imo) went unsold for over a year. While the galleries I know of tend to put a higher price on prints made from metal, I think the seller of the hydrant thought the work more unique than it is. From what I saw at Magnachrome site, about $300 would have been in the money for a good work of this size in a gallery.

I bet there is a market for this kind of material but probably not huge. It would be part of the same market that buys prints done on aluminum, gold…..

Anywho, it looks as if no one at LL has done this particular kind of work.

[enduser]

"Magna Chrome metal prints are printed on aluminum ....."  then clear coated and then a transfer method is used.    A form of transfer method is used by quite a few artists who manage to get their images on to rocks, wood, tiles etc.   The secret here is what their coating material is.

[bill t.]

Anywho, it looks as if no one at LL has done this particular kind of work.

Well I bet there are, but they probably have the good sense not to fan the competitive fires, a quality I completely lack.

It's well known that you can run flat panels through at least the Epson 9800 and 9880 printers, with a little help from a well constructed guide slide.

I saw several metallic pieces at the last arts & crafts show.  The one guy willing to share said it was the Kodak stuff which is actually a paper rather than a plate.  The examples of inkjet-on-aluminum have pretty much been flops at the shows, but perhaps the more photographic looking metallic chrome pieces will succeed.

Whatever else, there is a recognizable trend towards very brilliant prints, by one method or another.  For now I'm hedging my bets with glossy canvases like BC Crystalline with Epson Exhibition Canvas Gloss as a backup.  Both of those easily make prints that, in the proper lighting, have more dynamic range than my calibrated monitor.  I'm also using that paradigm shift as an excuse to raise prices, ya' gotta have an angle.  It's probably all due to mankind's visual cortices being fried by 50,000,000,000:1 LCD TV's.  Fare thee well, oh gentle tonalities, how I loved thee!

And doncha love the thing about "Magical Transcendence" in the price list?

[Justan]

"Magna Chrome metal prints are printed on aluminum ....."  then clear coated and then a transfer method is used.    A form of transfer method is used by quite a few artists who manage to get their images on to rocks, wood, tiles etc.   The secret here is what their coating material is.

Thanks. That does sound like the detail. And based on comments on the web site, it also sounds as if it is a more resource intensive process than I want to deal with. I might have to order a smaller example and if it looks okay, order a bigger one. They might sell....

[Justan]

> I saw several metallic pieces at the last arts & crafts show.  The one guy willing to share said it was the Kodak stuff which is actually a paper rather than a plate. 

Interesting.  Thanks.

> The examples of inkjet-on-aluminum have pretty much been flops at the shows, but perhaps the more photographic looking metallic chrome pieces will succeed.

That’s the question. People are looking for more oomph but it still has a long list of things it must do in addition to appearing backlit.

> Whatever else, there is a recognizable trend towards very brilliant prints, by one method or another.  For now I'm hedging my bets with glossy canvases like BC Crystalline with Epson Exhibition Canvas Gloss as a backup.  Both of those easily make prints that, in the proper lighting, have more dynamic range than my calibrated monitor. 

Thanks. Do you use G2 with these papers?

[bill t.]

Yes, GII diluted to be 30% water and sprayed with an HVLP gun, no rolling allowed.   You must coat those canvases, IMHO.  Both Crystalline and Exhibition Canvas Gloss have fairly resilient surfaces but can not take vigorous wiping with a cloth, and exposure to any kind of cleaning solution like Windex is a disaster.  A dot of solution that simply happens to land on the print can eat a hole.

It takes very little coating for good coverage, and you can easily vary the surface quality from super gloss to matte and everything in between merely by applying Gloss GII using various techniques...wet coats for gloss, drier coats for matte.  In the uncoated state, Exhibition Canvas Gloss is actually a little tougher than Crystalline, but the ECG surface is far too pebbly for my tastes and Crystalline has better range over on the blue side of the colorspace.  Both are very stunning on the wall and can compete with face mounted prints in equivalent lighting.  Also, the relatively subtle surface texture of Crystalline makes adjacent face mounted prints look kinda declasse, but that's just my opinion, Peter Lik might disagree.

[Wayne Fox]

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=62733

[bill t.]

Thanks Wayne.

To all my competitors, I can not recommend strongly enough that your should tie up as much capital as possible in implementing this process, or at least expensively obtain your inventory from purveyors of same.

They lost me when they said "giant 400F, high pressure press."  Doesn't paper burst into flame at 451F?  And is my garage big enough?

[Justan]

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=62733

Wayne

THANK YOU! The link provided a lot of awesome information. More than enough so that I will definitely just order out rather than trying to do this myself. I don't have half the resources or the room.

In the link you provided, you wrote that you were going to be offering this product. Its only been a little time, but how is the process going? Is there much interest?

Also in the video provided by Conde, the demonstrators were using their bare hands when prepping the print and transfer surface. Does the moisture and oils form hand prints negatively impact the final product? I use exam gloves for any contact with finish materials and was surprised to see so little care offered for that.

[Justan]

Thanks Wayne.

.... or at least expensively obtain your inventory from purveyors of same.

I don’t intend to be making an endorsement for the magna chrome site, but I thought their costs were reasonable.

[bill t.]

Their prices are reasonable for end users.

[Justan]

Yes, GII diluted to be 30% water and sprayed with an HVLP gun, no rolling allowed.   You must coat those canvases, IMHO.  Both Crystalline and Exhibition Canvas Gloss have fairly resilient surfaces but can not take vigorous wiping with a cloth, and exposure to any kind of cleaning solution like Windex is a disaster.  A dot of solution that simply happens to land on the print can eat a hole.

It takes very little coating for good coverage, and you can easily vary the surface quality from super gloss to matte and everything in between merely by applying Gloss GII using various techniques...wet coats for gloss, drier coats for matte.  In the uncoated state, Exhibition Canvas Gloss is actually a little tougher than Crystalline, but the ECG surface is far too pebbly for my tastes and Crystalline has better range over on the blue side of the colorspace.  Both are very stunning on the wall and can compete with face mounted prints in equivalent lighting.  Also, the relatively subtle surface texture of Crystalline makes adjacent face mounted prints look kinda declasse, but that's just my opinion, Peter Lik might disagree.

Thanks for this info. Why no rolling?

[Justan]

Their prices are reasonable for end users.

If I were to sell any real volume of this I’d ask if they offer a volume discount, but wouldn’t expect anything for one-zee two-zee productions.

Even at their retail costs, there is enough wiggle room to make a few bucks without trying to dupe the gallery customer $1,600 for a 16x20, as was in the incident that lead to the start of this thread.

[bill t.]

Rolling is not recommended with gloss canvas because water based coatings are STRONG solvents for glossy canvas coatings.  It takes less than 10 seconds for an image to pretty much dissolve under the roller, and that's no exaggeration.  Don't bother even trying.

And even with HVLP you have to be careful.  Put down a very thin "tack" coat first, which should dry in a couple minutes tops.  Then lay it on thicker.  But the thick-as-molasses, 2 pass technique I have been using with matte canvas is not recommended.  Will elaborate sometime.  One needs to be finesseful.  Bull-in-a-china-shop behavior may be ok for these forums, but not for gloss canvas.

Have been knee deep in glossy canvas technique for 3 difficult days.  Which is not what I need with two shows in June and very little stock.

Solvent sprays work great with zero melting and very forgiving characteristics, BTW.  Solvent coatings have always been better, too bad they can lead to brain death and sudden, startling explosions.

But OMG, Crystalline is just beautiful!  I'm getting colors and d-max and general tonal gorgeousness on canvas I never imagined I could.  Baryta move over.  And also I'm seeing detail I never imagined would come out.  But, ahem, it could be a little more chemical resistant, which is sort of like criticizing a miracle.  But definitely worth some PITA factor.  Honestly, I can never go back to matte, particularly for images with red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, or magenta in them.  Now if Epson would just lose that goofy pebbly surface, there would be two great glossy canvases.

[Justan]

> Rolling is not recommended with gloss canvas because water based coatings are STRONG solvents for glossy canvas coatings.  It takes less than 10 seconds for an image to pretty much dissolve under the roller, and that's no exaggeration.  Don't bother even trying.

Bummah! I don’t have an environment that permits spraying more than during about the 3rd week of August, and then only maybe if the conditions are just right. Doing solvent based work is definitely beyond that.

But it’s good to know there are other ways to get preferable results.

What prompted your change of materials?

> Have been knee deep in glossy canvas technique for 3 difficult days.  Which is not what I need with two shows in June and very little stock.

And yet, this is the best way to learn the materials. Okay well the best way to learn is when the schlep you hire does it for you, but otherwise…..

> But OMG, Crystalline is just beautiful!  I'm getting colors and d-max and general tonal gorgeousness on canvas I never imagined I could. 

Nice! I guess that would prompt a change from Sunset Select under semi-gloom.

[bill t.]

Well I have often coated canvas outside in temps as low as 46F and a couple times while standing on snow.  Like back in the days when you had to be a real man to work with canvas.  I know it is not too uncommon for the temps to rise above 50F in the Northwest, so Justan you have no excuse.

Also I just sprayed some test strips with Deft Glossy Wood Finish and by the time I got to the bottom of the print, the top was already dry.  And the finish was perfect in one under-a-minute coat.  Another excuse buster.  Let's just hope that's a stable deal.  For those living in HVLP-forbidden zones, it's oh so easy to sneak outside with a print on a piece of foamcore and one those little cans in your back pocket, and before anybody knows what happened you've got a coated print.  The smell must be coming from the dumpster.

OK, I'm pushing for the bright glossy look for exactly the reason we're blathering on about this chrome stuff.  There's a trend towards zappy prints and I need to compete if somebody shows up in the next booth with those chrome things.  My goal is to be both zappy and tonally beautiful, that last feature being somewhat absent in the metallic prints I have seen.  It's just a matter of being all things to all people who have credits cards that aren't maxed out, yet.

Another goal is to sell 800 large pieces this year.  And I think the oh-wow glossy look with the sensual tonality might be the ticket, especially for the Xmas shopping demographics I get at the autumn venues.