Process notes: Registration

If the contents of my inbox are any indication, one of the biggest challenges for new printmakers is the question of registration. For those readers for whom the question of registration is What is it? rather than How do I get it?, registration is the process of getting each color layer lined up exactly where it should be.

I think we're all familiar with registration that goes awry, even if we don't know what to call it. Probably most of us at some time or another have picked up the Sunday paper and found our favorite comic strip distorted... perhaps the blue ink is improperly aligned and all the images have an offset blue ghost. That's bad registration.

There are probably as many ways to approach registration as there are printmakers, with some techniques better suited to hand-burnishing and others to press printing. I thought it might be helpful to show you 1) what I've used for hand-printing, 3) what I now use for press-printing, and 3) some links to other techniques that you might find helpful.

When I was hand-rubbing all my prints I worked on mounted blocks and over the years developed a jig system that worked really well for me. I wrote a post about it several years ago which you can find here: The Linocut Jig.

Two sizes of registration jigs for hand-rubbed prints, mounted blocks

But everything changed a year ago when I brought home Presston, an etching press. It is possible to print mounted blocks on an etching press, but I didn't really want to mess around with type-high rails and trying to figure out how to register a mounted block.

I tried a couple of different ideas before I hit on the pin-and-tab system I'm using now. It has its limits, but so far I'm content with it.

1) The jig: I cut a piece of matboard with an opening the size of my unmounted lino. The mat itself is wider on one end to accommodate the pins and still allow for a good paper margin.

2) The pins: About a million years ago I worked in a commercial print shop. I set type and did layout via the paste-up method... yes, I am that old. My pasted-up layouts then went to the camera room, where the camera guy made film negatives of them and then "stripped them up" for exposure to metal lithographic plates. And guess what? He used pins and tabs just like these to do the job.

There are several references for pin-and-tab systems on the interwebs. Some will tell you to secure your lino to bookboard, but that seems like a clean-up headache to me. I also know of instances where printmakers adhere the pins directly on to their lino. This works really well for bleed prints (image goes over the edge of the paper), but at the moment I like making prints with nice, clean margins.

(Note: Ternes-Burton sells pin-and-tab sets, but I found that I wanted shallower pins than the ones included in sets. I'm using the 1/4" x .055 size)

3) The tabs: The slightly tedious bit in this system is setting up the paper (and then taking it all apart again when the prints are finished). Once I have all my paper trimmed to size I turn each sheet face down on the jig, snug up to the pins. I affix tabs to the pins, and then tape the tabs to the paper with blue painter's tape. So far the blue tape stays stuck through the entire print process... it does pull up some paper on the back when the prints are finished and the tabs are removed, but I allow for this with a wider margin on one edge of the paper.

And, voila! We're ready to go. I was worried at first about running the metal pins through the press, but I haven't had any problems because 1) I'm using the most shallow pins which, even attached to the mat, are not any higher than the lino block, 2) before I run the print through the press I place a stiff cutting mat over everything including the pins, and 3) I'm using the lightest possible pressure setting. I get NO embossing of the paper. But I'm keeping a watchful eye to make sure there are no problems over time.

Other techniques:

McClain's Printmaking Supplies has a very helpful one-page PDF describing the Japanese kento technique here, and another page about using their registration board here. The registration board is something you could easily make yourself with their description. (McClain's has all SORTS of great instructions that they include with their products.)

Maurice Fykes III has an extensive description of a pin-and-tab system available as a PDF here.

Three different techniques are described in Michael Merry's Introduction to Printmaking blog here. The blog appears to be the website for an entire printmaking course, so there are lots of other useful links there as well.

Northwoods Trekker has an interesting modification for a pin-type system made from an inexpensive hold punch on My Printmaking Journey, and there's another similar version in a thread on the Wet Canvas Printmaking Forum.

If any readers have links to other systems that they'd like to share, I'd love to see them in the comments.

Press experiments: Registration, Part 2 - Pins and Tabs

Not being able to print when there's a 450-pound wheedling child in your living room is some unique form of torture, I think. Deciding to try a pin-and-tab registration system is one thing. Having to wait for aforementioned pins and tabs to arrive in the post is another thing entirely.

I had just about settled on carving some single-color images so I could at least play with pressure settings and paper when a happy little parcel arrived with today's mail. Hooray!

About a million years ago I worked in a commercial print shop. I set type and did layout via the paste-up method... yes, I am that old. A good friend of mine was our shop stripper, which doesn't mean what you think it means. The stripper took my pasted-up layouts, shot and processed film negatives of them, and then "stripped them up" for exposure to metal lithographic plates. And guess what? He used pins and tabs just like these to do the job.

There are several references to using pin-and-tab systems on the interwebs, this one by Maurice Fykes III is available as a PDF download on the McClain's website. It's a good explanation, but I didn't particularly like the idea of having to secure my lino to bookboard for the entire printing process, mostly because it seemed like clean-up between each color would be a pain in the neck. I also know of instances where printmakers adhere the pins directly on to their lino. This works really well for bleed prints (image goes over the edge of the paper), but I want to find a way to make prints with nice, clean margins.

So.

Enter Registration Experiment #2. I have a mat with an 8 x 10" opening, the size of my unmounted lino block, to which I have adhered the pins. Like this:

The mat should have been wider so the tabs would fall farther from the top of the block and give me a wider paper margin, but for the purposes of this experiment it will be fine.
Once the pins were stuck to the mat board (with clear shipping tape, nice and strong), I started attaching tabs to paper. This is a little tedious, but not horribly so.

Once I had twelve sheets of paper taped up I was ready to print. I started over with a whole new block and all new paper, just to make things easier on myself.

So imagine, if you will, going back and printing the two steps I showed you the other day all over again. And then imagine my initial dismay when my first attempt to print the second color with this new system FAILED. Ugh! Seriously? Is this not going to work?

But I stayed calm and tried the next sheet. Perfect. And the next one? Perfect. In fact that first sheet was the only one that gave me problems, so I suspect some wretched pilot error on that one. Second color a success, so on to the third!

Great. All of these worked, no problem, so I think I'll give colors 4 and 5 a go tomorrow if I can.

The matboard jig is okay, but I don't think it's a long term solution. The board will wear down and eventually the block won't sit as squarely. I'm used to the feel of particle-board-mounted-lino against pine, but don't really want to continue with the thickness that I've been using for handprinting.

Luckily the carpenter at the local lumber yard is accustomed to my odd requests and will happily let me dig around in his scrap pile until an alternate idea presents itself. There are lots of ways to do this, and I just need to find the one that suits me best.