New Thing #306--Transformation

Today's Thing is compliments of Kathy at Available Light. When I read her post a while back, I thought it was interesting, and filed it for future use. Today I made an inkjet transfer picture.

According to Kathy, I had everything I needed:

• an inkjet printer (mine's geriatric, but serviceable)
  
• a good image to work with (or the best of what I've taken!)
  

I chose a picture from a couple of months ago. Son Donald had been growing his hair out for awhile. He was going to cut it in preparation for a job interview, but wanted a radical style for a day or so before he went "corporate". His brother Tony gladly agreed to assist him; they grabbed the scissors and clippers and went out to the garage. I have a whole series of pictures of the process. This is the first:


After I had chosen my picture, I needed a sheet of inkjet address labels--but just the glossy backing sheet with no labels on it. When you print on the glossy surface, the ink doesn't adhere, but beads up on it; it can then be transferred to a sheet of paper to make the print.

I inserted the backing sheet in the printer, and printed out the image on the glossy side. While the picture was printing, I dampened a sheet of paper. When the printing was finished I pressed the two pages together. The last step was to carefully pull the pieces apart; most of the ink was now on the damp paper.

My first try was very blurry, so I tried again. I wiped the excess ink off the backing sheet and ran it through the printer again. This time I barely dampened the printer paper, and I tried really hard not to smudge the transfer when I removed it from the backing sheet. Here's the result (a mirror image of the original):


I'm not sure if the poor quality can be attributed to my picture taking, my printer, or the fact it was my first time attempting this. It was a very interesting project, though, and I think I'll be trying this again.