This little guitar holding, wine bottle Hombre was originally captured with a Nikon D80 a while back while I was visiting Spain. The original file was cleaned up in Photoshop, cropped, and corrected for exposure. The colors are quite punchy and vivid, which I think helps add to the simple graphic like quality of the photo. This guy looked like a great candidate for a litho print.
The file was re-sized and the color channels were separated into three separate layers (black, red and blue) as this would be a three pass litho print. From there, three polyester pronto plates were printed, one for each of the colors with the help of a laser printer. From there the plates were printed using a printing press. The ink is mixed, rolled on to the plate, and then the plate run through the press with your choice of paper. The processes is repeated once for each plate, taking care with regard to the registration of the plates. I chose to print on a fairly thin, beige-ish Eastern paper with a semi loose grain.
Give the print time to dry, and viola! The litho printing process is quite fun, but requires a bit of practice to get things just right. I really enjoy this print, it has a cool vintage vibe, maybe like a poster from the old West. The colors are much more muted then it's digital cousin, but again I think helps give it an old-timey feel. If you ever get a chance to give litho printing a try, I highly recommend it! It's a blast to get your hands dirty and try out older and alternative processes. Litho can also be printed using a four pass method utilizing a CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) method, which makes printing full color prints fairly easy. Lithography is a fascinating processes, and has strong artistic roots. It has been used (and perfected) by many masters, including Picasso, Matisse, Escher and Hockney.
More on Lithographic Process
Offset Printing
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