Facsimiles

For the facsimiles, the digital master file was given to both the University’s reprographics service and a local photographic printers. It has been very interesting to observe the differences between the two. The colour casts are subtly different and there is appears to be a difference between the contrast settings. I believe neither place adjusted any settings prior to printing, so these differences will have occurred in the printing process. As the copies were made in the spirit of testing out the process, neither place had access to the original poster for reference so the colours were not as vibrant as on the original. There were also subtle differences between being able to see the pixels – one was a little bit softer compared to the other.

For the purposes of making a decision about whether to show facsimiles or not, we arranged for the copies to be magnetically hung on a wall for the collection owners to see what could be done. Although they were very impressed with the results, a decision has now been made in collaboration with the entire team that only originals will be exhibited.

Going through the process of testing out the option of showing facsimiles has been a really fantastic learning curve. The digital image can now also be used in the planned digital resource in support of the exhibition.