Unlike tradition etching, photopolymer etching uses no acid, no wax, and no sticky smelly stopout varnish; produces no fumes and no dust; and doesn't turn your hands yellow. In short, it's safe.
The plate is etched by projecting ultraviolet light through a transparency of your design onto a polymer-coated aluminium plate. The light hardens the exposed polymer; you wash the plate in water, removing the soft parts, and revealing the etched lines. You then print the plate in exactly the same way as a traditionally etched plate.
Photopolymer etching seems to be promoted primarily as a means of creating etchings from photos, so my first plate was based on one of my photos.
House on the Paseo del Prado, Havana.
Solarplate etching on paper, approx A4.
I chose this photo from my trip to Cuba because I wanted to see how much detail the etching method would pickup. Compare it with the original photo:
Almost every detail!
Then I printed the plate in different colours.
This last one shows one of the problems with solarplate etching: if you cut the plate to size by using a Stanley knife, the polymer coating can split from the plate at the corners, leaving a gap into which ink creeps, and then spills out when you print.
More pictures later.
