'48 Leaf Wagner/Robinson - Print Variation?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

Steve, would you say that 1 was at the beginning of the print run, and towards the end, the card started to look like 3? In other words, the pink color started to lose strength towards the end?

That's a difficult question, the Magenta on 1 is very bright, while the Yellow isn't. 3 is the opposite.

Long stuff follows, short version is there are just so many variables It's not really possible to say for sure.

There are lots of things that can affect color like that. If the plate is dampened slightly less it will retain more ink.
On most presses the inking level can be adjusted.
There are a few things that can be done to stretch the available ink if for instance you have an hour left in the day, or you're on the last few hundred sheets but getting low on ink. All the ones I can think of would change the color slightly.

Humidity and temperature can affect how the paper absorbs the ink, how the ink goes on the plate etc. If the shop is consistent, it's not much different. But whoever did the printing for Leaf obviously wasn't into consistency..

Stuff like inking levels can indicate different press operators, some may run heavier than others. Typically you'd print one color on a particular day, for high production it would be over multiple days, and maybe multiple shifts.
The place I was at each operator typically used one particular press, but it's possible their plant assigned operators to certain jobs if it was a multi day thing, or that someone was out sick or hurt, and another operator took over.

I think a lot of what Leafs printers did was out of economy.
Over thousands of impressions, heavy inking uses more ink and cuts into the bottom line a little.
Getting rid of the side bars uses less ink.
Inking less heavily and maybe adding a touch of white ink to the yellow uses less, (white and black may have also been cheaper as the pigments are less expensive. )
In some ways not having the side bars looks a little better, and adding the hat shading makes it better still. And uses way less ink than the sidebars. (And very very little on the non-Portraits. )