Description
Price: $54.99 - $49.99
(as of Mar 24, 2025 22:19:44 UTC – Details)
In Digital Alchemy, acclaimed printmaker Bonny Pierce Lhotka shows how to turn your standard inkjet printer into a seemingly magical instrument capable of transforming your printed images into true works of art. Using plenty of visuals and straightforward terms, Lhotka walks you step-by-step through over a dozen projects. Forget printing on boring old paper, in Digital Alchemy, you’ll learn how to transfer and print images to a variety of surfaces including metal, wood, fabric, stone, and plastic using the techniques Lhotka’s spent years developing. If you’re a photographer looking for new ways to personalize your work or a digital artist who’s ready to take your work to the next level, you’ll find all of the tools, techniques, and inspiration you need in this book. Lhotka’s enthusiasm for experimenting with unusual printing materials and processes has led her to create new and amazing transfer techniques, including one that resembles a Polaroid™ transfer on steroids. She
Publisher : New Riders Pub; 1st edition (January 1, 2011)
Language : English
Paperback : 307 pages
ISBN-10 : 0321732995
ISBN-13 : 978-0321732996
Item Weight : 2.15 pounds
Dimensions : 8 x 0.75 x 9.25 inches
Customers say
Customers find the book informative and a great reference for alternative processes. They appreciate the beautiful artwork examples and new insights into art making. The book is described as excellent, worth purchasing, and easy to follow, with a 60-minute DVD of additional instruction.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Kristy Melgoza –
Excellent reference for digital transfers and more …
Having been seduced by digital photography and inkjet printing from their inception, I’m always looking for innovative ways to manipulate these mediums. If you have an experimental nature or are simply looking for ways to break out of the basic shoot & print digital workflow, Digital Alchemy is for you. Bonny Lhotka generously shares her knowledge gained from her own experiments and years of expertise. Techniques and materials are clearly documented, relatively easy to follow and highly addictive.In Digital Alchemy, the author is not simply showing you how to move an inkjet print to surfaces beyond photo paper, she is exposing you to the intriguing potential these prints have as an artistic medium, and in the process, teaching you new ways to think about your prints. The techniques will teach you how to handle a myriad of materials from traditional painting gels to aged and patinated metals, all in relation to the digital print, and to this end you will move back and forth between digital and traditional artistic processes.Yes, if you’re serious about experimenting you may need to invest in materials that you won’t find at the local office supply or craft store. You may find yourself shopping in a nearby home improvement store and/or utilizing a few paint supplies you probably already own if you’ve ever used acrylics. As others have noted there are a couple of items that are sold by Bonny Lhotka’s DigitalArtStudios, and she does recommend you use those materials, but I disagree with the other reviewers who suggest the processes in the book are exclusive to those proprietary products. They aren’t, and she subtly hints at this fact a couple of times in the book. Additionally, the products Bonny sells are easily priced comparably to other similar products on the market for making transfers of this nature (stable, reasonably predictable and archivable to an acceptable level). I’ve purchased from her store as well as from other suppliers, and all materials have their own small differences. As she so obviously advocates — experiment!!! Try a few brands and stick with the one’s you love. (As a side note, I’ve always received my materials from DitialArtStudios quickly and in perfect condition — and this is important when having supplies of this nature shipped). Note: There are also a few processes, such as alcohol gel and gelatin transfers where the materials can all be sourced from local grocery or drug stores — easily obtained.THE FINAL WORDS:This is a must-have reference for anyone serious about exploring digital media as an art form beyond the standard high quality print.
Rae K. du SSollae –
A Must Have Book for Anyone Wanting to Do Creative Digital Printmaking
Bonny Lhotka is truly an innovator and pioneer in the digital printmaking world and she shares her expertise in this wonderful book. For anyone interested in printing outside the box or even on one this book will guide you through the preparation of substrates, the printing process, the materials needed to the final UV laminate coatings. It is filled with illustrations on each process plus examples of Bonny’s own work to show how great the results can be.It is also filled with handy tips and tricks to make sure you don’t ruin the head of your printer and how to work with all the gooey, gluey stuff artists love. I can’t imagine a more complete book on the subject.For those reviewers who complained that the author pushes her products well, she has developed a high end line of products herself. They are great products. Why wouldn’t she tell the reader about them? Printmakers are always looking for information on products. No one has to use them as there are other options out there but her line is great, I’ve used them all for years and, unlike the bigger companies, Bonny is always available by email to answer any technical question you have or problem you run into while printing.Purchasing and using this book is a no brainer if digital printmaking is your thing.
D. Gruntle –
Perfect Title
A while back I was recommended to a digital transfer course given locally by one of Bonny’s students. My primary artistic outlet is photography but a friend let me know that this might be a terrific addition to my photo printing. I fell in love with it. In the course the instructor recommended Digital Alchemy as a terrific reference source. The next day I bought it from Amazon. When it arrived I read it cover to cover and was elated with all of the creative ways I could transfer photos to various and exotic (for photography that is) substrates. The book sits by my workplace and is an excellent reference whenever I begin a process with which I’m still inexperienced. I also like that it’s substantially made so that it will survive inks, Super Sauce accidents, splatters and the like. I find that the writing is easy to follow, logically sequential, and easy to find sections when I want to refer back to them. Get this book. You won’t be disappointed.Oh yeah. Bonnie’s creations are stunning. Almost worth the book alone.
Florence Minton –
I like it but…
Bonny is a really talented woman and this is a great book. I would have given it 5 stars but I deducted two for one big reason – she uses this book consistently to plug her product line to the exclusion of other products. She is not really trying to teach you how to do something, she is trying to teach you how to do it using her products. I was especially irked in the introduction where she is telling us about the materials we will be using. In the section on printable inkjet coatings, she extolls the virtues of her own (and very expensive) DASS Universal Precoat to the exclusion of other very good products like InkAid and the new Golden Digital Grounds. It does the reader a big disservice to not mention all of the options and let the reader choose. This is not the only time she does this. In the chapter on transfers, she goes on about her SuperSauce, which is also sold on her website and also very pricey and her own brand of transfer films.The examples in the book are very beautiful, but Bonny also has access to very high end printers costing thousands of dollars. This is not a book for beginners. The processes are expensive and complicated, but that does not mean it is not enjoyable to read or just look at her work. Just be aware of the shameless plugs and you will enjoy the book overall.
Duntara –
Worth buying
RhonArt –
A very interesting book with lots of brilliant, creative ideas for printing on other materials than paper. However, I do find that some of the ideas “suitable for an inexpensive desktop printer” are not really all that suitable and most of the printers that can be seen in the book appear to be A3 size – which, for us “hobbyists” are not always within our preferred price range! However, the book is excellent and certainly gets those creative juices flowing, and has inspired me to get back a bit more to experimentation rather than just using “Photoshop” techniques. The results of her work are stunning, as are her images in her “Digital Art Studio” book, which shows techniques for combining Inkjet Printing with traditional Art Materials and was written in co-operation with Dorothy Simpson Krause and Karin Schminke. I shall keep my eyes open for further books by this author.
Pomme –
Je suis très déçu par ce livre qui n’est dédié qu’aux produits que vends l’auteur !!Quelle ne fut pas ma surprise en lisant que toutes les techniques proposées étaient TOUTES recommandée AVEC l’utilisation des produits, films, gels etc. vendus par l’auteur.Il y a dans la description du livre des intitulés qui n’indiquent pas que tout finit sur le site de vente internet de l’auteur.ââââââââââââââââââââIn Digital Alchemy, you’ll learn how to: Transfer images to metal, wood, plastic, and other materials that will not feed through an inkjet printer Print directly on metal for a fraction of the cost of using a print service Simulate a print from an expensive UV flatbed printer using an inexpensive desktop printer Use carrier sheets and paintable precoats to print on almost any surface Achieve near-lithographic quality digital prints with transfer processes to uncoated fine art paper
Lydia Oberjakober –
Well written and chapter progression makes sense. Easily understood , especially with the included CD. The CD didn’t work for me until I transferred the info to a memory stick ??
Secondhand rose –
This is a well written book with a lot of info, my only real criticisms are firstly that it is written for the US market and some of the products are not readily available in the uk, and secondly it is expensive!