Sunday, March 18, 2012

Taking the time to do something properly

I have decided that I have to take the time to try to be a bit more scientific in my approach to printing out my digital images.  I have been trying to get images for deadlines, rather than taking the time to really experiment.

I have another image that I printed out using the TAP paper.  I did it for our ATASDA group.  We were meeting just before the Moomba Festival and the challenge was to produce something for that theme.  As usual, I was wanting an image straight away, I hadn't given myself time to really work on a design.  And I was in the midst of trying to work out the best way to print out some fabric using the home printer.
photo
The design used a photo I took a couple of years ago, some words, some pattern put into one of the words and a little bit of distortion of the reflected word. I enhanced the hue and saturation a bit also.
digital image

The colours have come up much brighter than my swan images, both the TAP one and the treated cotton one. It is actually quite good colour, much more intense than the ones I had produced using the swan images. As I had used a different image, it didn't really tell me how the different image transfer techniques compared.


That's the trouble with trying to compare products, you should only change one thing at a time but I am too impatient and want to use the fabric in a particular way - NOW.

Perhaps I will take the time to do some proper experiments, making sure I use the same base fabric, the same computer settings, the same image, the same hue and saturation settings, etc.  I will have to stop being frugal and say that I am experimenting, not trying to produce fabric for use in a specific quilt or artwork.

And I'll have to make sure I use the proper iron settings - here is an example of what happens when you forget to turn off the steam when using the TAP. 
And here is what happens when you forget that you are using a transfer technique and you should have reversed your text (and the whole image, really).

  Fortunately I had done the above two images rather small so I didn't waste a lot of TAP and fabric.  

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