Odd question for you all....

[Gene Howe]

How would I go about printing(?) or transferring a sepia photo onto glass?
Decals would work but I'd like the image to be applied directly to the glass. Any ideas re: chemicals and processes?

[harry strasil]

FWIW,

I really have no idea, but I do know its a very old process for pictures as most civil war pictures are Sepia. One alternative would be to sandwich a Sepia photo between a front glass and a backing like modern photos in a frame, and have the front glass engraved with the photo, making kind of a 3D depth appearing photo. There is a gentleman here who engraves glass with images from photos, in fact every year he does a limited run of Christmas Tree ornaments that are engravings of an old photo of a local building. Just a piece of glass about 3 or 4 inches square with an engraving on it and a hole with a hanging string. They are real collectables locally and some people have one from every year and are on a waiting list for the next one.

Its just a suggestion, but I have seen a couple of old photos done this way and they are very unique.

[Jim Koepke]

I do not know if you can still get glass photographic plates, but this could be one way if you do photographic work.

I have not done any in decades. There are also photo gelatins that are used in various industries. Some of these I used to work with could be exposed under the sun as it takes a bit of time and then applied to glass. Some of them would work like a resist so the glass could then be sand blasted or etched and then the etched part could be stained.

jtk