Expensive toy proves value of intaglio printmaking
The endlessly entertaining Rob Cockerham has dedicated a section of his site to a toy called The Eyeclops Bionic Eye. The Eyeclops is essentially a hand-held scanner that displays objects on a television screen, magnified up to 200 times their actual size. In the introduction to the Eyeclops, Rob scans several items. Of special interest is his comparison of a magnified catalog, and a magnified dollar bill:
Rob notes: “Almost all printed material looks the same up close at 200X magnification: Lots of tiny dots. Except for money. Money is not lots of dots. It is different, printed by impression from an engraved metal plate.”
…Intaglio printmaking: still good for something, after all!
Rob apparently knows a bit about printing from a previous job as a pre-press tech at a print shop. He also used the Eyeclops to expose “secret yellow printer dots,” the anti-counterfeiting tracking measure that, according to Rob anyway, is “a secret arrangement between the United States Secret Service and the individual printer manufacturers, including Xerox.”
All this is so exciting, I can hardly stand it. I need an Eyeclops.
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