Resources

Resources

My favorite sources of supply and other businesses that are great to know about.

See “before & after” for more examples of black and white images derived from photos and drawings.

Photoshop can be intimidating at first, but you only need learn a few things to turn it into a wonderful tool. The videos I’ve made will help demystify it, and get you started to create black and white designs from photos. The second video builds on the first. Get an image and play along!

Workshops:

I teach Beginning Photoshop workshops where we focus on creating images that can be tailored for various metal and enameling techniques. Students work from original photos and drawings, and gain a Photoshop foundation that can easily be adapted to other image editing purposes. My beginning workshops come with a lot of individual hand-holding and assume no previous knowledge of Photoshop. This workshop can also be useful for intermediate users who want to refine their knowledge and discover new uses for this indispensable tool.

Upcoming:

• July 2023 through Pocosin Arts, “Beginning Photoshop for the Faint of Heart”: a virtual workshop for absolute beginners.

My workshops require the full version of Photoshop 2019 or later, and a laptop computer.

I have been using Photoshop for metalsmithing and enameling purposes for over 25 years, and teaching these skills since 2003. Adobe has made many significant changes to the Photoshop tools and user interface in that time. I only teach with a later version of Photoshop so that everyone is working with the same menus and tool options.

Sources of supply:

I update this list as I learn more techniques - it’s not exhaustive, just what I often use. If there’s a resource you want to know about, contact me and I’ll share it. (All links open on a separate page.)

Software:

• Adobe Photoshop; subscription photography plan, $9.99/month. Requires a year’s commitment, but you can cancel for a small fee. With it, you also get Lightroom, which is Adobe’s image database program, plus 20GB of Adobe Cloud storage. The subscription includes free software updates as they become available.

  Before purchasing any Adobe product, be sure your computer operating system meets the system requirements that are posted on the Adobe website. Once you subscribe, you also have the option of downloading some earlier versions of Photoshop or Lightroom that might better match your system. You can have more than one version of Photoshop on your machine, and you can install the same version on two machines.

• Adobe Photoshop Elements; standalone program, not subscription. You have to pay for upgrades. PS Elements might be called “Photoshop Lite”, and it’s sort of the equivalent of what Photoshop 4 was back in the late 90’s. It offers fewer refinement and design possibilities. Because it has a different user interface, I don’t teach with Elements in my workshops.

• Procreate; a drawing and painting app for iPad. It goes seamlessly back and forth with Photoshop: I use an Apple stylus and the Procreate brushes to draw patterns that I then import into Photoshop for further refinement. It is not a substitute for Photoshop, but a useful tool if you like to draw and have an iPad.

• Flaming Pear software has a halftone plug-in called India Ink. It has possibilities to create unique graphic textures for etching. I have not yet tested this plug in, but it seems to offer the most possibility. In my work to date I’ve used a wonderful plug in called Andromeda Screens, but it’s no longer supported and the company has apparently shut its doors.

Photo equipment, films:

• B&H Photo Video; Pictorico film - the choice of many pro photographers for making digital negatives. There are less expensive alternatives but Pictorico is superior because the coatings hold more ink. More ink = true blacks that block all the UV light. B&H also carries inkjet inks, photo print paper, cameras, lenses, and other photographic equipment. Fast service, competitive prices, often free shipping.

• KEH Camera; used photo equipment at very reasonable prices. They check everything out, and “grade” every camera and lens by its condition.

• Takach Press; ImagOn and PurEtch films, photopolymer plates; they also have a large vertical etching tank.

• Cape Fear Press; PurEtch and other photopolymer films. She has a little video on exposing PurEtch.

• Light Measure; device that precisely measures the UV exposure for ImagOn and screen emulsions. Extraordinarily useful if you work a lot with UV processes, or if you want to experiment with different films or light sources. Much better than timing exposures, or replicating exact distances between your plate and the light. Very small company with great customer service. If you’re an educator at a school, ask about their discount.

• Techniks; PnP Blue. This company developed PnP, has larger quantities for a better price than other retail sources. (I no longer use PnP, but it’s an OK way to do very small pieces that don’t have a lot of tiny detail. You also need a flat heat source, such as an electric pancake griddle.)

• Reactive Metals; PnP Blue (small quantities) They also have a lot of other cool stuff like mokume and titanium.

• Bostick and Sullivan; contact print frames, really worth the investment if you work a lot with photopolymer films or UV exposures. It’s like a thick maple picture frame that presses and clamps your negative film very tightly to your metal or screen. It will give you crisper images, save you time in setting up your exposures, and allow you to avoid loose sheets of glass in your studio (I use an 11x14 frame). They also carry the chemicals like potassium dichromate, which can be used for photo work on enamels.

• Home Depot; halogen work lights that will expose ImagOn and PurEtch films. Available at most good hardware stores, in single, hand held and double versions. I use the double light for my larger pieces. These lights do NOT work for exposing screens! The UV spectrum that the screen emulsions require is different from the spectrum emitted by these work lights.

Etching:

• Sierra Chemical; ferric chloride, ferric nitrate, copper sulfate (for electrolytic etching), sodium carbonate (for ImagOn developing, but try washing soda from the grocery store first - same thing), and many chemicals used to make copper patinas.

• Dripworks; drip irrigation supplies, micro fittings for aeration in etching and electroforming tanks. I also use their 1/4” soaker hose in my vertical etching tank, essentially creating a “bubble wall”.

• Mountain Rose Herbs; food grade (and inexpensive!) citric acid for Edinburgh etch solutions; essential oils, other cool stuff and henna for your hair if you’re into that.

Metals:

• Sequoia Brass and Copper; specializes in oxygen free copper, larger widths.

• R.J. Leahy Co.; non-ferrous sheet, wire, and fasteners. They sell by the pound, very competitive prices. They cut their copper from large coils, so if you work large with film or screen processes that require UV light, their copper will not be 100% flat for your exposures. For this reason, I only use their sheet products for smaller work.

• Nimrod Copper Co.; copper foil in very thin gauges, down to .0005”.

• Easy Leaf; precious metal foil and leaf, mica powders, precious metal powders for painting. This is a Sepp Leaf competitor, but with no minimum order and you don't need a resale permit. They will sell single booklets of foil and leaf (25 leaves), rather than whole packages (20 booklets). They carry silver foil (about 2x - 3x the thickness of gold leaf), but not gold foil.

• SeppLeaf; the biggest domestic supplier of precious metal foil and leaf.

Enamels, stains, glass paint:

• Schilling; owns and distributes Reusche traditional glass stainers colors. Reusche colors are similar to Mason stains but with a wider neutral color palette for creating shadows and skin tones. Unlike Mason stains, Reusche colors contain a vitreous material, so no additional flux is needed. This can make them easier to use with thick applications. Mix with any preferred medium, using a glass muller. Schilling sells by the pound and has a $100 minimum; there are also other small companies that sell china painting supplies and carry a few Reusche colors by the ounce. Call Schilling for info about their retail distributors.

• Sheffield Pottery; Mason Stains. These are completely intermixable and the color palette is huge. However, they don’t contain any vitreous material so you may need to add a flux of some kind, depending on your application. Mason stains are primarily used to color glazes and clay bodies, so most ceramic supply companies that sell glaze ingredients will carry them. I tend to use Sheffield because their turnaround time is good, they have a great selection, and I like the way the colors are organized on their website.

• Warm Glass; Sunshine Colors and mica powders. Easy to use, but a few are cadmium colors that aren’t completely intermixable with the other colors.

• E-namels; Sunshine Colors, Thompson and other vintage enamels.

• Schlaifer’s Enameling Supply; lots of vintage enamels and other enameling supplies.

• Enamel Art Supply; took over Enamelworks after Coral retired. Carries Ninomiya Japanese leaded enamels.

Decal and screen supplies:

• Milestone; custom and commercial decals.

• EZ Screen Print; stencils for screen printing.

• Blinggasm; waterslide decal paper. Also available from Amazon.

Patinas:

• Sculpt Nouveau; pre-mixed patina chemicals for copper and steel; metal coloring dyes, metal waxes and sealers. The owner is the patina master, former sculpture prof at CSU Long Beach, restorer of old bronzes. They have a great website and catalogue and are very giving with technical information.

Misc. supplies and equipment:

• Cricut; source and information for Cricut die cutters, tools and materials. Also check on Amazon for many of the supplies; or a good hardware store with a housewares department often carries Contact paper, which can be die cut for an etching stencil.

• Douglas and Sturgess; the kind of art and sculpture supplies you will be hard pressed to find in one place anywhere else, such as waxes, rubber mold materials, investments, pigments, mica powders, atomized metal powders. Talk to Arty for technical info.

• Howard Wire Cloth; wire mesh in stainless steel, copper, other metals; all meshes and wire sizes. You can buy scrap from larger runs, and these are usually very suitable for firing trivets or making custom sifters. Enamelists can also buy stainless steel mesh from McMaster Carr.

• Otto Frei; diamond pads. Expensive - you can find the them much cheaper on Amazon, but beware! The beauty of 3M diamond pads is that the abrasives are “graded” so that your work is sanded evenly. I’ve had a bad very experience with cheap pads: with poorly graded grits, they can gouge the metal and create unwanted deep scratches because of uneven mesh sizes in the pad. You get what you pay for.

• MSC; industrial supply, industrial supply, tools, fasteners, safety products. I tend to use MSC for diamond abrasive products, small power tools, and stainless sheet metal. See also McMaster Carr.

• McMaster Carr; industrial supply, tools, fasteners, safety products. I use McMaster Carr for fasteners, stainless sheet and wire cloth, graphite sheets. See also MSC. These two companies offer the same enormous array of useful stuff, but with slightly different specialties.

• Graingers; another industrial supply company.

• Wale Apparatus; hot glass tools and supplies, diamond pads, protective eyewear. If you’re using welding glasses for kiln work, you aren’t protecting your eyes adequately. Glass and ceramics found in enamels and kiln firebrick give off wavelengths in the IR and sodium D spectrum, not filtered by regular dark glasses. Glass workers wear special lenses that filter UV, IR and SodiumD.  

• Micro-Mark; small tools of all kinds.

• U.S. Plastics; jars and plastic containers, chemical resistant gloves, labware, food safe plastics, developing trays, tanks for electroforming. I also buy jars for enamels from Uline.

Books and other resources:

• Adobe Lightroom Classic - The Missing FAQ, Victoria Bampton. Victoria is the widely acclaimed Lightroom Queen. If you decide to spring for Adobe’s Photography plan and want to use the Lightroom (the image database program), you need this book. She also hosts a wonderful user forum that is extremely helpful. I have 40 years of many thousands of photos, and Victoria has brought filing-cabinet order to what was once chaos.

• The Contemporary Printmaker; Keith Howard. Another bible, this one for for ImagOn techniques; Keith Howard put ferric chloride and ImagOn on the metalsmith’s map. The book is out of print; if you can find a copy at a reasonable price, grab it!

• The Art of Painting on Glass, Albinus Elskus. Another invaluable out-of-print book by a glass painting master. If you’re interested in realistic painting on enamels, get it if you can find it!

• Electro-etching Handbook; Alfonso Crujera. A bible for galvanic etching using a rectifier instead of ferric chloride. (Available in electronic form only.)

• Orchid (Ganoksin); articles on photo etching processes and just about anything jewelry related.

• RawPixel; artwork and illustrations in the public domain. Free to download at high resolutions, but you have to register on their site.