Computer drawn lines on mounts

[Roboframer]

There's been a lot of discussion on the mat stylus head for the valiani - but surely machine drawn lines have been around for ages?

I know a few print publishers that use these machines - you can tell it's been done by a machine - the corners aren't marked, the lines are too bold and there is a blob caused by the overlap at the start/stop point. Plus they are just pushing out too many to be arsed to take the time to do them by hand.

Maybe these machines could only ever do straight lines - or maybe they were/are dedicated line-drawing machines and the mat stylus is different because it is an adaption of a mountcutter and/or is not limited just to straight lines? Not sure about that though, because I know I read an article/saw and ad, about a machine that could do 'calligraphy' absolutely yonks ago.

Anyway - I understand the advantages - any shape you like in any colour - even signatures.

But the disadvantages are, or could be, limitation of colour and, especially, tone, and then there is lighfast-ness.

Do you think the day will come when a CMC can take a nib with a reservoir of some sort, containing ink or watercolour, or acrylic .... that you have mixed yourself?

Better still, do you think the day will come when a subtle washline - say one inch wide, can be made with a CMC attachment? One that looks as good as one really well done by hand - IOW not clinical.

Can a machine capture that obvious class and does anyone give one anyway

[WelshFramer]

Better still, do you think the day will come when a subtle washline - say one inch wide, can be made with a CMC attachment? One that looks as good as one really well done by hand - IOW not clinical.

That's probably a long way away. I've had some success in printing washlines with a wide format inkjet printer.

I started by scanning a washlined mount in orer to get some of the irregularities inherent in a hand-done washline. I then converted that to greyscale, broke it down into its components parts and applied colour overlays and transparency effects in Photoshop. Now I've done that, I can resize it and change the colours at will.

It's just as quick as doing it by hand.

[prospero]

I once had some pre-mounted prints with machine-drawn washlines. After a few weeks the lines dissappeared and I had to draw them back on by hand.

[markw]

I am totally sold on CMCs - can see some great applications for the Mat Pro head - but I wouldnt use it to produce washlines - for the very simple reason that it cant produce washlines.

The very word washline describes the process - The application of a line of watercolour that is washed or spread (thinly) onto the board. The nature of this wash of colour drying leaves very distinctive tramlines that you just cant get in any other practical way. In my opinion characterless felt tip pen lines look awful and don't last.

[Merlin]

There's been a lot of discussion on the mat stylus head for the valiani - but surely machine drawn lines have been around for ages?

Yes they have in the form of large bed expensive plotters or wide format inkjet printers as stand alone machines.

Do you think the day will come when a CMC can take a nib with a reservoir of some sort, containing ink or watercolour, or acrylic .... that you have mixed yourself?

5 years ago there was not a CMC that could be easily converted to draw lines/shapes on a mount. Now it is possible.
There has been a lot of discussions on the framing forums about using inkjet printers with pigmented ink to draw onto mountboard. The disadvantages were the alignment problems and finding a printer that would easily accept 1.4mm mountboard.

I am totally sold on CMCs - can see some great applications for the Mat Pro head - but I wouldnt use it to produce washlines - for the very simple reason that it cant produce washlines.

Technology is racing ahead, so who knows what will happen. However, IMHO there will still be a need for a true hand finished wash line for some time to come.

The facility to provide the customer with something different and eye catching in the form of mount decoration/personalisation/design has now arrived in the form of a Stylus/pen attachment and at less cost than a wide format printer.

The image below was produced in 3 minutes. Unfortunately the image at 72dpi does not do it justice. The pen used was a Pilot 0.7mm using Pigmented Ink. The letters ROBO had an offset of .2mm so as to give a wider line than the surround.
There is no 'blob' at any of the start/stop points.

robo.jpg (209.13 KiB) Viewed 5460 times

[Jared Davis CPF, GCF]

5 years ago there was not a CMC that could be easily converted to draw lines/shapes on a mount.

Hmm... what about Zund? They've had this "pen holding" feature available for the 10+ years I can remember? I would be interested to know the difference between Zund's pen attachment feature and Valiani's?

and finding a printer that would easily accept 1.4mm mountboard.

Any Epson Pro Graphics Printer in the 9000 series can accept & print on standard thickness matboard. They are the most popular digital printer available in the photographic market.

Cheers,

Jared

[Roboframer]

Hmm... what about Zund? They've had this "pen holding" feature available for the 10+ years I can remember? I would be interested to know the difference between Zund's pen attachment feature and Valiani's?

Marketing?

'Zund' is a name that rings a faint bell and is probably the machine I saw advertised years ago. If I think CMCs I think (in no particular order) Valiani, Gunnar, Wizard .... (struggling) .... TruCut?

My Keencut Oval 6 has a pen attachment - so how difficult can it be to replace a blade holder with a pen holder on any CMC?

Or an airbrush.

[Merlin]

My apologies to you Jared. Like RoboFramer the name Zund rings a faint bell and in my 10 years of framing, I have never seen one at any of the UK trade shows.

I did say in my reply that I do know there are wide format inkjet printers that will print on Mountboard. They are stand alone systems. As you say they are the most popular printer in the photographic market, I am not too sure how that expense would be justified for the small retail picture framer when we now have Stylus/Pens available for CMC's.

[WelshFramer]

http://www.zund.co.uk/page_aboutus.asp

[Framerpicture]

I would consinder Zund to be the Rolls Royce of CMC, with a price tag to match!
They were showing at Focus this year with a adaptation of their machine to slice up images printed on rolls produced on wideformat printers.
They still produce machines to cut mounts and I know of several companies using them