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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

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.

2 comments:

  1. 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.

    Actually, the quality is pretty good. I've done some ones that are really smushy. I've found glossy photo paper works well, too, and doesn't need to be dampened. Good job.

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