Simulating Bromoil in the digital domain

[Steve Ricoh]

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Not having a darkroom I’m limited, so looking for tips to simulate the effect.

Anyone?

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[adan]

(Ahhhh - an excuse to escape the M11 threads )

The key point about Bromoil is that, as a hand-made, hand-controlled inking process (with roller, brush, sponge or blade - as the artist desires), it can produce many effects. There isn't just one "effect."

Back in college I took a class in alternative photo processes, and made some regular "oil prints." Which is pretty much the Bromoil process, except substituting for bromide photo paper an art paper, hand-coated with gelatin, and sensitized and "tanned" with potassium dichromate and UV light (a sunlamp will work) via contact-printing from an enlarged negative. And then inked.

In both cases, one ends up with an image of oil-based ink on gelatin-coated paper.

They both amount to types of photolithography (just as your local newspaper is probably printed). Except that the inked surface is the final original artwork, (a monoprint), rather than being a printing plate to print onto other paper.

Therefore the one thing about (Brom)oil prints that can't be digitally simulated is the 3D effect of a variable-thickness layer of oily ink sitting on the surface of the paper. Unless, of course, one uses a 3D printer for output.

.....................

Anyway - here's how I simulated one of the many "looks" of an oil print, digitally (M8 original photo). Which reflects one effect I pursued with the real process decades ago.

- Took M8 original, and converted to monochrome/grayscale.

- Increased contrast substantially (optional - choosing contrast is part of the creative choices available).

- "colorized" image with Photoshop's curves to make everything "not white" into "red" (i.e. grabbed the shadow end of the red curve and raised it to the top of the graph). Image was now red "ink" on white.

- expanded the image Canvas Size to provide a "paper" border.

- Selected the image area with a jagged or rough edge using the "lasso" selection tool, inverted the selection, and deleted the outer edge of the image to form a ragged image edge (most noticeable in the lower part of the picture). This simulates both the hand-coated gelatin area, and to some extent the hand-brushed ink.

- then, to get the full "brushed-on ink" effect, I chose the PS Eraser tool at about 15-20% opacity, and with a multi-hundred-pixel-wide "brushstroke" tip pattern. With which I streakily and subtley "erased" the red in places, with large overlapping strokes.

- Once that was done, I "selected all" and used Curves to slightly reduce the blue brightness over the whole canvas, to give it a faint yellow tint. Reflective of perhaps aging, and/or a bit of residual dichromate in the "paper." (Potassium dichromate is a screaming orange-yellow chemical when solid, or dissolved in water, or in this case, gelatin).

https://vishnuchemicals.com/product/potassium-dichromate/

Thus one gets the effect of red ink, brushed onto a sheet of wet paper with a latent "tanned" image . The oily ink only sticks to the tanned part of the gelatin, being repelled by the wet parts.

You'll see that what I did essentially simulates the actual hand-process steps of Bromoil or oil prints, one by one (with a few short cuts that PS allows)

https://www.alternativephotography.com/making-a-bromoil-print/

For a more "conservative" handling, one can stick to black or slightly brown "ink" - reduce the image contrast, especially preserving highlights (or even graying them down a touch) but clipping some blacks for a rich inky-black density. Skipping the ragged "hand-coated" edge deletion. Skipping the colorized background (or using something other than dichromate-yellow). Adjusting the contrast curve to have more contrast in shadow areas than highlights (but not "crushed" blacks). Playing with other ink-texturizing effects (including perhaps grain, or sponging, or stippling, or paper fibers).

Anything that creates the effect of oily ink smeared onto moistened paper that has a variable acceptance capacity for the ink. And then roughly removed by hand with a brush or other implement from the places the ink shouldn't stick (wet highlights).

 

 

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[Steve Ricoh]

Thanks Adan, that’s really informative and helpful. I will see if I can replicate this with one of my own images using the steps you’ve outlined 

[adan]

I look forward to what you come up with (even just experimental work)!

And BTW, the same basic steps (with creative variations and different colors) can also be used to simulate other hand-coated non-silver print processes, such as:

- Van Dyke Brown prints

https://www.alternativephotography.com/beyond-the-blues-vandyke-brown-printing/

- cyanotypes (the same process used for old-fashioned construction and engineering "blueprints")

https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/introduction-cyanotype-process/

- gum bichromate prints (although those are best simulated with several transparent Photoshop "layers," for different colors/tints.

https://www.alternativephotography.com/gum-printing-basics-how-to-make-a-gum-print-troutner/

Or combine them.

Those were all also taught in the same course where I practiced oil prints. "Alternative processes" were very en vogue in the 1970s.

[Steve Ricoh]

I’ve been putting off getting to grips with Photoshop ever since picking up a super cheap deal on CC6 back in 2016. It seem far to complicated, but this is a good incentive to knuckle down as it were.