Reworking the ImagOn Plate

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Materials:

A liquid ImagOn emulsion is made by stripping the ImagOn emulsion from its peel back layer and Mylar protective backing and dropping this emulsion in a light proof jar containing 99% rubbing alcohol (the 70% isopropyl alcohol also works but takes longer to dissolve).
Make sure that both plastic surfaces of the ImagOn emulsion are removed and that only the raw ImagOn emulsion is placed in the alcohol.
This is one way to use ImagOn off-cuts. The ImagOn emulsion is added to the rubbing alcohol until a syrupy consistency is reached. The alcohol takes several hours to dissolve the ImagOn emulsion.

To rework the dark areas of the plate the plate must be thoroughly cleaned with vegetable oil and then with a water and magnesium carbonate solution until all greasy ink residues are removed. After the plate has dried the liquid ImagOn emulsion can be painted directly on to those areas of the plate that represents the darkest areas of the image. More than one layer can be applied. After the ImagOn has dried the Aquatint Screen is positioned on top of the plate and exposed, developed and light-hardened in the same manner in which the plate was originally made. (See the description under the WD-H-Type)

One simple way to rework the lighter areas of the plate is to use various coarseness of wet-and dry sandpaper. By using the dry sanding method this sandpaper is wrapped around a burnishing tool to facilitate burnishing small areas of the plate.

Provided there is no oil or ink residue on the surface of the ImagOn plate Hunt Speedball water soluble screen filler 4720 can be painted directly onto the surface of the ImagOn (see the Mezzo Intaglio Type).This technique adds a relief dimension to your image and has great image adjusting abilities according to how thick the screen filler is applied. Printing this type of plate in intaglio and relief simultaneously presents yet another image making option.
At this point it is easy to see how collograph techniques can be applied such as using water based glues sprinkled with salt to sticking textured materials directly onto the plate. Of course the option also exists to start with a collograph plate or in fact any etched plate and selectively apply small or large areas of ImagOn film to the surface thus opening up the possibility to rework virtually any plate. When applying ImagOn onto an irregular surface the alcohol concentration of the lamination spray should be increased to 50%. Although a plate can be used immediately best results are achieved by leaving the adhered layer of ImagOn on the plate for a minimum of six hours before exposing it to the image.