INTRODUCTION TO
DIRECT PRINTING
To this point in the book, I’ve talked all about the transfer process.
With direct printing, you create a unique substrate and print onto
it directly—no transfer involved. It’s just like printing a letter or
document, but you’re printing onto a different surface, your customized
substrate.
Direct printing onto a custom substrate brings together your skills as
a photographer, a collage artist, and a painter. Creating your custom
substrate can involve building a collage, a procedure that can be as
elaborate as you choose to make it. Or if this sounds too daunting, it can
be as modest as taking silk or tissue paper and a few paints, and creating
a work of art to use as a base image. Alternatively, and for the simplest of
paths, you can direct print to metal with a desktop printer and just skip
the collage steps altogether.
The important question becomes, How thick a substrate can you safely
put through your printer? There are some desktop and wide-format
models that can print to interesting surfaces, but there are also a num-
ber that can’t, so it’s very important that you read your printer’s manual
to make sure you can do these processes on your printer.
For a regularly updated product information list, check the book’s
website: www.digitalalchemybook.com.