Direct-to-Plate Photopolymer Gravure
Workshop with Don MessecDirect-to-Plate Photopolymer Gravure
May 26-30, 2025
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The Soulful Print is how many refer to DTP (Direct-to-Plate). There is something uniquely emotive about DTP gravure prints, a form of alchemy, crushing ink into paper. And because the plate has an emulsion of photopolymers, you can go beyond transferring only your photographic images to the plate. You can let DTP open a whole world of mark-making and composition that will allow you to take your work to new places. Maybe that is why the response of critics, curators, and collectors is so positive to DTP prints.
Once learned, DTP becomes an artistic process in that it is direct, simple, and unimaginably quicker than classic gravure and pretty much any other analog printing process for photographs – without the numerous toxins and mess of classic copperplate gravure. And it’s not just for photographs.
DTP produces gravure quality prints from UV-sensitive plates without the need for a vacuum or contact frame, transparency films, screens, or carbon tissue while eliminating the need for multiple baths of Ferric Chloride. There is no longer the need to go through the laborious process of plate masking, etching, etching again and again, deoxidizing the plate again and again – then rinse, repeat. And because digital imaging can be exploited to create and enhance content, anything you desire can end up in a plate: drawing, photos, text, collage elements – anything you can get into a digital file can become part of your work.
Using any one of many Epson inkjet printers, including X900 printers, you will be able to print your image directly onto a plate’s emulsion before exposure. This does not require special inks; Epson’s OEM pigment inks work, as do Cone inks and other aftermarket inks. It is even possible that the newest artists’ quality (not office quality) dye-based inks will work. Plus, because of direct-to-plate, it is now possible to expose directly in the sun or under fluorescent UV lights as well as point light sources to great effect. Results are far more reliable and repeatable than transparency-based exposures. All this adds up to a process that is creatively dialectic by getting to the printing much sooner and with fewer expensive plate-making catastrophes.
Getting to the print sooner gets you from the plate-making process to the art-making process with more energy for refining and experimentation with interpreting your work. If desired by the class, I will add an explanation and demonstration on making film positives, which can be the simplest way to add most any manufacturer’s printer to photopolymer gravure.
Gallery of Direct to Plate prints here.
For a short history and explanation of photopolymer gravure plus additional examples please visit here.
What’s Included
Plates sizes for the workshop are 8×10″ or 8×12, the later size matches the 2/3 ratio of most digital camera sensors. Squares of 8×8″ can be cut from 8×10″. Your fees include 4 plates. The studio includes digital printer, printing presses, printing inks and etching paper, a few computers for studio use along with all the other common tools and materials for making photopolymer plates and prints.
What to Bring
- Source materials such as digitized drawings and digital photographs in any of the following formats – PSD, jpg, TIFF, RAW. It is important that you bring original unaltered files in addition to your processed or manipulated versions. It can be more than useful to go back to an unmodified original to re-interpret or re-work the image once you how the process impacts the image.
- Optional, digital camera if you have one. Of course you will take pictures and video! Yes, you can bring film, too. I have an arrangement for developing and scanning.
- Jump drive (thumb drive or other portable read/write media)
- Laptop which should have current versions of Photoshop or Lightroom or ON1 RAW, and TK Luminosity Masks, are all useful. If you do not have any of this software please download a trial version for the workshop. We have some studio use Macs, but not enough to cover everyone’s full-time needs.
- Large enough luggage or box to pack prints with stiff protector (cardboard or mat board). Rough paper will be torn down to approximately 11×15”
Registration includes a reasonable amount of materials and supports an extensive array of communal shop needs, costs and consumables.
That’s it! Any questions about supplies, please feel free to contact us.
Workshop Itinerary
- Monday morning begins with students arriving at the studio between 9:30-10 AM.
- Daily instruction is 10 AM to 4 PM with the studio open to students between 9:30 AM and 7 PM. Exception is Friday when the workshop ends at 4 PM.
- Bring a lunch everyday except Wednesday, when we go out Dutch for a late lunch. COVID dependent.
- If opportunity and conditions collide we may get to add a photo excursion.