Scan and print onto hand made or simulated ancient paper

I recently purchase two book pages on ebay from a 500 yr old medical book that I had intended to frame. They have text and hand drawn and painted illustrations. However, they are actually the front and back of a single page and I would like to use both pages for display.

In addition, They are a bit less saturated and there is a tiny bit of bleed through from one side to the other in a couple of places. Thus, some Photoshop could do them a lot of good and I’m good at that. I think I can scan them successfully. So now I’m thinking about printing them using some sort of archival ink and using some sort of paper that simulates the original or that at least appears “ancient”.

Can anyone make suggestions re a printer, possibly at DMS, and a possible source of paper that could feed into such a printer? Also the pages are a bit smaller than I expected. I might scale them up a bit.

Can’t help with the printer, but here are some options for ‘ancient’ paper

http://www.dickblick.com/products/black-ink-egyptian-papyrus-paper/
http://www.dickblick.com/products/awagami-silk-pure-white-paper/
http://www.dickblick.com/products/indigo-artpapers-handmade-watercolor-paper/

2 Likes

I have a few maps and manuscript pages framed that have the same issue. My solution was to sandwich the pages between two pieces of glass and do a floating frame style finish. I can pull the piece off the wall to access both sides.

3 Likes

I have seen these types of papers in person at Dick Blick. They are lovely, but it could be challenging to get them to go through a printer. They tend to be a little, ummm, crinkly.

To get it through a printer, you could use the bypass feeder tray and a “carrier sheet”. Gently tape a piece of this type of paper near the leading edge to a “standard piece” of paper that will act as a feeder carrier. Then use the bypass tray to feed it in. This works well with fabric. I don’t know if it will work without damage in a laser printer, but it should work in an ink jet printer.

1 Like

I was more thinking of a plotter, which has better ability to deal with such papers. Those are also easier to find with archival inks.

1 Like

Thanks, John and others. Yes, I was thinking in terms of inkjet for sure. Can get archival inks, for ex. and the default paper path is straight. Or since the plan is to be doing this once perhaps there is a printing facility that specializes in this stuff.

You might try contacting the kind folks at Clampitt Paper or Coupralux ask them if they know of anyone locally that prints an that type of paper. Most folks that do custom printing i.e. fine art and/or wide format use archival inks.

http://www.clampitt.com/ - ask for the folks in the sample room - they are knowledgeable & fantastic folks

http://www.coupralux.com/

I do fine art/wide format printing at my work, on various media, but not papyrus.

5 Likes

You might also check with Valley House Gallery, they have had several exhibits of
medieval pages,

1 Like