True Continuous Tone:
Exquisite detail, from deep shadow to bright highlight.
Rich Pigment Ink:
Opaque, oil-based pigment inks for unmatched richness and depth.
Distinctive Surfaces:
Thanks to the highly skilled craftsmen, prints can even be made on fibers, including cotton, linen, silk, rice, and vellum.
Fine Art within Reach:
Collotypes are accessible to collectors whose means may prevent them from investing in extremely rare prints.
Collotype is an interesting fusion between French and Japanese discoveries. The printing process was discovered in France, about 150 years ago. It was a new style of printing that combines photography and printmaking and the results are one-of-a-kind.
When introduced in Japan, Japanese craftsmen mastered in this artform and brought it to the level that it’s at today. Collotype started as the standard method for European photo reproduction, but due to the high level of expertise needed to obtain beautiful results, it was quickly replaced by machine-based, faster and cheaper methods.
Artisans like those at BENRIDO are determined to keep the art alive through their beautiful works of art.
There are two key elements to Collotype:
How is it made?
Light sculpts the dichromated gelatin layer of the plate. Once the coated glass is exposed to a negative and washed, the gelatin absorbs water in proportion to the degree of light exposure, giving the surface a defined topography. The more light that passes through the negative, the greater the relief it creates in the gelatin layer.
In addition, a second critical transformation takes place here, which enables the registration of extremely fine details in the print. An intricate network of microscopic wrinkles form in the gelatin layer as it dries.
When ink applied to this reticulated surface makes contact with the paper, it saturates the fibers and achieves more complete coverage- and thus more definition than offset printing, for example, which registers color with a dot matrix system, leaving negative space around the discrete point of ink, thus compromising the resolution of the printed image.
BENRIDO was established in 1887 in Kyoto, where they have been specializing in Collotype printing since 1905. With over a century of experience in the craft, they are one of the very few Collotype studios left, and the world’s only one that produces full-color photographic Collotype prints. They have won several awards and recognitions and have been responsible for many big art works and projects in Japan and abroad.
“Now that new technologies have all but driven collotypes to extinction, the Benrido studio provides photographers of the digital age with a unique opportunity to realize their creative visions using this rare process.”