A sheet of 400gr Agfa Synaps was coated with zerochrome-SbQ emulsion. It was dried on a flat surface over the weekend in a dark room. This resulted in a thin emulsion on Synaps, unpigmented but very similar to pigment tissue for Carbon transfer. Contrary to gelatin, that sets after a few minutes, this emulsion can’t be dried hanging. All water has to evaporate horizontal.
I used the direct to plate method and printed a positive with my Epson P6000 using the standard Epson inks and the curve I normaly use for Toyobo polymer direct to plate. The sheet was treated like a normal polymer plate, exposed, washed, dried and hardened. It was inked with my usual Charbonnel etching ink made a little less stiff with some drops of linseed oil and printed on the etching press with high pressure. It has to be tested how many prints can be made with this emulsion hardness and the Synaps polyester backing.
It can clearly be seen that the curve needs finetuning in the highlights and there are some artefacts in the image. Consider it as a proof of concept. I will test other substrates and try different emulsion dilutions and coating techniques. This emulsion was coated like a carbon tissue with a spritz of alcohol just before pouring and a comb to spread. It dried very glossy but the inkjet ink reception of the PVOH is excellent. I will try my Epson 3880 with Piezography K7 Selenium inks on it later.
