Exposing Your Screen

Video Transcript

"In this video, we're going to review exposing your screen. Once you have applied the photo emulsion on both sides of your screen and it is completely dry, you're ready to expose it. It's best done on a light table, but you can do it with a basic lamp as well. Or you can do it in the sun. You need a negative of the image that you want to apply on to your screen, ideally on something printed out on acetate. If you don't have acetate, you can do a regular white printout and oil it. This is an oiled photocopy. It always goes emulsion to emulsion. So you're going to want the front side of your print to the flat side of your screen. You want to tape it into place. If it slides or it moves, you'll have an out of focus and fuzzy image. The screen gets laid face down on to the table. Sandwich contact is critical. It will result in a much cleaner image. In this case, in a homemade studio, I'm just using pieces of wood. This will force the pressure down on the table and help to hold the, your negative from not moving. Once your screen has been exposed, you want to take it to your wash up booth or to your sink and rinse it. The exposed areas of the screen will fall away, the UV will have hardened the rest of the emulsion so that it works like screen filler. And once your screen's completely dry, you want to do what's called post-hardening, which is just put it right back on to your light table and leave it on the light table for, you know, three or four minutes and that will help to hold the screen on."