Description
AQUATINT SCREEN A1 (62 cm x 86 cm / 24 x 33,84 inch)
DK-Aquatint Screen (Random dot screen made to order)
This aquatint screen gives extremely fine and delicate gray tones together with deep blacks. The screen has been defined by the photographer Henri Bøegh, Copenhagen, especially for photogravures and delicate washes and drawings.
Professional aquatint screen for photoengraving and heliogravure.
Stochastic screening is used to convert continuous-tone images to discontinuous-tone images on polymer plates.
It prevents bald spots and makes it possible to print images with tonal scales, as photographic positives or analogue positives.
These stochastic screens are built by tiny dots that are randomly arranged using digital software. This random arrangement (stochastic) avoids any kind of interference with the positive image. A stochastic aquatint screen is essential to avoid balding and loss in images with tonal graduations on the polymer.
The Technical
Whether working with analogue positives or digital positives, it is essential to use a stochastic screen. The aquatint screen is the necessary tool to structure the plate and make the reproduction of continuous tone images feasible. The random and microscopic arrangement of the stochastic plot points helps us to take advantage of all those grays that would not appear otherwise.
In the jargon of printmakers it is known as aquatint screen by analogy to the chalcographic technique, where random dots of resin are arranged on metal plates, accommodating the base for the construction of tonal images depending the acid action. In our case, The aquatint screen is exposed on the polymer plates before the image positive.
Our stochastic screens are digitally processed to simulate an irregular arrangement of the points, simulating the stochastic FM options offered by the filming machines software. In this way we can have control over the percentage of opacity, the layout and size of the point. This screen is crested with a 40 micron dot size.
The screen greatly affects the final quality of our photopolymer plate. The tonal range that we can achieve in photogravure printing depends on the structure and layout of the plot. Without the use of a stochastic screen, our photo-etchings prints would be too contrasty, missing the wide tonal ranges that can be achieved with photopolymer plates.
The Practical:
How to calibrate the exposure time of the aquatint screen is explained in my books: “Handbook of Non-Toxic Intaglio” and “PHOTOGRAVURE – Instruction Manual”