Optical Properties of the Woodburytype: CFPR paper published in The Journal of Physics Communications

Damien Leech, Walter Guy and Susanne Klein recently had a paper published in The Journal of Physics Communications: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2399-6528/ab6ed4

The optical properties of the Woodburytype—an alternative printing technique based on a gelatine/pigment matrix.

Standard printed images, such as those produced by inkjet and screen printing techniques, use halftoning to achieve the illusion of a continuously changing tone – this means that the smallest change possible is directly linked to the size and pattern of the dot used. The Woodburytype is a 19th century printing technique that can achieve true continuous tone, by linking the tone directly to the print height, and can produce highly detailed photo-realistic representations of an image.

We use simple optical measurements to determine exactly how the light moves through the semi-transparent film that the ink produces and interacts with the substrate it is printed on. In addition, we use this knowledge to formulate ink recipes that allow for the greatest possible range of contrast and maximise the lightest and darkest regions of the print.