Digital BW, The Print

My old partner, Allen Maertz, created a multi tone set ten years ago, but nobody seemed interested in buying B&W dyes back then! In our south window testing, the Spectratone B&W dyes seemed indestructable, when printed on gelatin or polymer receptor inkjet papers.

The biggesst problem with dyes, was when the various colors co-mingled on the paper, causing what Wilhelm called "catalytic failure", causing one color to fail early. The purpose of the swellable polymer inkreceptor coatings was to isolate the individual droplets. But high ambient humidity levels after printing also could cause the printed dyes to migrate in the swellable polymer papers.

These papers are still available from Ilford--look for the "Classic" papers.

As to why the early microporous papers failed with the Iris Dyes, this could probably be explained by oxidation of the dyes by the greatly enhanced surface area of those papers. If you seal the surface of those papers after printing with dyes, with anything to seal the microporous surface, the prints had much enhanced life.

John Nollendorfs

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Ernst Dinkla <edinkla@...> wrote:
>
> Op 28-11-2010 16:57, Paul schreef:
> > Ernst Dinkla<edinkla@>  wrote:
> >>
> >> ...when dye inks have to be used on matte papers
> >> it may be a good thing to explore the uncoated cotton
> >> papers again. With the Iris dye inks that
> >> proved to be more fade resistant than using the then
> >> new inkjet coated matte art papers.
> >
> > Was there ever a good explanation of why that was the case?
> 
> Possibly PH grades differed, buffered + coated papers not really 
> suitable for the dyes used, the dye never reached the cellulose. The 
> best place to find explanations for that result must be available in 
> fabric printing. The Ciba Specialty  Chemicals division for example. 
> Reactive dyes. Though part of that industry switched to pigments too 
> because they could be used more universal on all fabrics.
> Wilhelm's testing at that time didn't have ozone tests. Nevertheless gas 
> fading was a known phenomenon in the textile industry. The washing 
> machine and curtains hanging in sunlight are an environment some grades 
> more aggressive than prints indoors framed behind glass.
> 
> http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/fiberreactive.shtml
> 
> John Nollendorffs might know of what is left of third party gelatine 
> papers. His Lincoln inks were Ilford Archiva dye inks 
> (Iris>ColorSpan>Encad) customised for the Epson 9000. Ilford always had 
> a good link to Ciba of course. Olmec and Ilford had/have gelatine papers 
> but not in matte versions I think.