We have all heard the saying many times that a picture is worth a thousand words, and it actually sounds somewhat dated as I am writing/saying it, yet we are all working in a visual field where we are trying to advertise, show off, or commemorate a situation, a person or an event. There are many ways of doing so by employing words to describe the idea we are trying to get across and/or using pictorials of some sort, which are often an abstraction of the idea we are trying to convey. There is, of course, also the possibility and the need to be quite literal with our images. In this article, I would like to cover some of the products that can be created with the process of using photo resist and halftone images.

As some of you may recall, I have written a few articles on the topic of creating photo resists for abrasive blasting. In order to make the topic more palatable, I have mostly used a specific project to cover the actual process of blasting with a photo resist. To recap just the bare basics, let me go over the steps of the process. As with all blasting work, you need artwork and an original film of the artwork from which you will create the photo resist.

A thank you to a couple, etched photo in a lighted base. (top photo) A windscreen with an etched photograph at a rail stop.

The material you will print your artwork on will depend on the printer you use: a translucent white drafting film to be used with laser printers or a milky-looking transparency film specially created for use with an inkjet printer. Once you have the original, the next step is to create the photo resist using the material of your choice. I am saying this, because since its inception, photo resist has gone through many phases of development, and there are some people out there, so I hear, who still use some of the earlier versions of photo resists rather than the newer versions of self-adhesive resist or the latest addition, the dry-process film.

For the production of a photo resist with standard black and white artwork, it is almost of no consequence which resist you choose. You need to work in a darkroom situation under yellow-light conditions. You need to have an exposure unit that uses UV-light or Mercury Vapor or Metal Halide as its light source. You take a piece of light-sensitive photo resist and place your artwork with the printed side to the emulsion side of the film. You then place this “sandwich” into the exposure unit, expose the material for the manufacturer’s prescribed length of time, then wash out the material and dry it, unless you use the dry-process film. Now you have your resist and are ready to apply it to any object so that you can blast the image. So far, so good.

I have also covered the process of creating photo-like images with photo resist. Here it is quite clear that the way to go is with the dry-process film RapidMask that is on the market; it is the only dry-process film around. I have gone through the steps before harping on the importance of creating good artwork, which is more important with photo images than with black and white artwork. You have to reverse-engineer the image from a full-blown photo of a 133 line screen to a halftone image that will most likely be in the range of a 35 to 65 line screen. This creates an obvious dot pattern reminiscent of newspaper pictures of days gone by. (I know, I know, some of you may not know what I’m talking about since you are a bit younger than me.)

All of this can be learned rather easily; it is important to create enough contrast within the image to be able to blast the image without losing whole areas which will look all white in the picture, making it look unnatural. Anyway, once the halftone original is created, you process the film with the original in an exposure unit and then are ready to apply the resist to your object. Yes, object. So, what can be successfully created with a photo image?

A family photo etched as a Christmas card.

This may seem like a stupid question, but it pays to consider what can be done, since we all get into our ruts of doing things the usual way and often are oblivious to many other possibilities. So let’s consider what projects can be made with a photograph as an image on glass, tile, metal or stone. Scanning my mind for some of the projects we have worked on, it becomes clear that most photographic images were used to capture people in an event in our lives.

The events span our whole life: There is the baby picture of the newborn child, the wedding picture with the invitation or vows, the happy anniversary couple on a curved bevel piece, a dedication to an achievement such as a graduation, a promotion or a salute to a good deed as well as a remembrance of a loved one. As already mentioned, all of these can be created on a variety of products such as curved bevels, award blanks, wall plaques and photo frames.

We have blasted photos onto tree ornaments or sun catchers as well as marble or granite plaques and slabs as memorial stones. Not too long ago, I wrote an article about a memorial stone I created for a young man killed in a car accident. Right now, I am working on a larger memorial glass display honoring 34 young men, all killed during WWII who all graduated from the same high school.

We should not forget our animal companions here either. I have covered pet memorials before, both on glass and stone, and there are also opportunities to simply celebrate a person or pet. All of the above are the most common ways I can think of for using a photograph in our work. Less obvious is the fact that most of our advertising industry depends on photographic images to help make its case. The image of a cityscape, landmark or landscape will try to entice people to come and visit or proudly announce the celebration of a centennial or other event important to the city. A dedication to a state park or an invitation to a zoo will easily use a photographic image.

Then there is the whole world of sports which marks an athlete’s personal achievement or illustrates how you fared in a competition or just generally boasts of a particular sport. Most all of the above cases will not only use a photograph, but will also employ text of some sort as well.

And from sports it is easy to jump to the category of celebrities which can be found in any category mentioned, from heroes in rescue and war, to peace makers, explorers, inventors, statesmen, movie stars and music legends—all have outstanding accomplishments to be celebrated. There are many more categories, I know, but I can’t list them all, and you would probably get bored if I were to continue.

Last, but not least, there are also opportunities to create works of art which use photographs to express a concept and/or mood in which case the image stands alone without any words, hoping to engage the viewer with its imagery. I am just now working on a series of images for an artist, and maybe I will share more about this project in an upcoming article, if the artist agrees to let me show some of the images.

As you can see, this is a very broad topic, and I hope it may have gotten you to think about a new venue to pursue within the line of awards and recognition. There is a bit of a learning curve to be able to blast photographic images, but the results are stunning, and the appreciation of the client is very rewarding. As the title says, a picture is worth a thousand words, and so I am also letting the photos which illustrate this article speak for themselves.
© Ruth L Dobbins 2011