Printing at true size

A design that's going onto a block has to print at exactly the size you drew it. Anything that scales the page to fit the paper, however slightly, breaks the match between your image and the block you're about to cut.

Why "fit to page" ruins a transfer

Most printer dialogs default to "fit to page" or "scale to fit," which nudges the image up or down by a percent or two so it clears the printer's margins. That's invisible on a document. On a transfer for a block, it means your carefully measured 100 mm square prints at 98 or 102 mm, registration marks land off their intended spot, and any second colour separation you print later won't line up with the first. Always choose "actual size" or "100%" for anything you intend to carve or register from, and turn off any automatic scaling.

Check it against a real ruler

Don't take the printer's word for it. Print a ruler, or a square of a known size, and hold an actual ruler or tape measure against the printout before you trust it. Printers, and the software feeding them, can be wrong in small but carve-ruining ways, and it costs a sheet of paper to catch it before it costs you a block.

Mirroring

A relief print reads as the mirror image of the block: whatever's on the left of the block prints on the right, and text or asymmetric imagery carved as drawn comes out backwards. Most transfer methods need the artwork mirrored before it goes onto the block, so the printed impression comes out reading the right way round. The exception is a transfer meant to be viewed directly on the block rather than pulled as a print, which is traced non-mirrored on purpose. Check which your method needs before you print anything, since a design mirrored twice is a design that isn't mirrored at all.

Transfer methods

A few common ways to get a design from paper onto the block:

• Carbon paper. A sheet of carbon between the drawing and the block, traced over with a stylus or pencil, leaves a high-contrast line on the block. Mirror the drawing first.
• Acetone or wintergreen transfer. A laser-printed page, pressed face down onto the block and worked over with a burnishing tool and solvent, lifts the toner onto the block. Print it mirrored.
• Iron-on transfer. Similar idea, using heat instead of solvent to release toner from a laser print onto the block. Also mirrored, and sensitive to how long and how hot you press it.
• Direct trace. Tracing paper or a light table, working straight from a non-mirrored drawing, useful when you want to check the design against the block as you cut rather than working from a fixed transfer.

If you carve on the iPad app, Carve Plan generates the mirrored guide for whichever transfer method you pick, and prints it at exact scale. See Carve plan.