Can you turn landscape photos into quality photopolymer plates?

megantrowbridge
on 15 May 08 (09:36)

Thanks in advance for feedback…Is it possible to take my landscape photography and be able to get a high quality photopolymer plate that will print well? What would be the best process?

gillyfish
on 15 May 08 (10:16)

Were you thinking black & white or cmyk, or?

jhenry
on 15 May 08 (11:42)

Of course one may reproduce photographic images by letterpress, and photopolymer plates work very well. You will find that the density range of the photo will be compressed, and even more so if printed on uncoated paper stock.

One very good idea, if you have not printed halftones before, is to get a plate made of a greyscale with tones lighter than and darker than the photos you hope to reproduce. Print the plate on various papers and see what happens to the tones in the reproduction. I would suggest that you use no higher than 133 lines/inch screen pattern on coated stock and 100 lines/inch on uncoated.

I learned my halftone theory and practice on process cameras, but the same tone compression, extension, or contrast control can be done electronically in Photoshop or other image processing software. Believe me, it is now a lot easier than it was in the 1970s. I’m not aware of newer references, but any good book on halftone reproduction would be a good start.

John Henry