Digital BW, The Print

When I was more tolerant of dot gain, in pre-Museo days, I used to 
print a lot on Crane's cover stock. It is all-cotton but not coated 
and also only very slightly different on one side than on the other. 
I could never decide which was better but of course had to know. So I 
called Crane's to ask about it (neither is better), and also asked 
whether any of their cover stock was acid-free. They said no, but 
that it might not matter because they had some very old things in 
things in their archives on which it apparently hadn't. And old at 
Crane's is indeed old; the paper we call "bond", for example, was 
developed by Crane for the first bonds to be printed on, and I 
believe Crane's supplied the paper for U.S. money from the beginning.

EAM/EEM is of course very different from Crane's cover stock. But my 
point is that if we get too "religious" about acid-free papers, or 
brightener-free papers, we might miss out on some good bets. So I 
tend to think of EAM/EEM as for some purposes an alternative to, as 
well as a proof sheet for, Museo.

Sam McCandless         samcc@...


>bjornaagedk wrote:
> >
> > Hi everyone!
> >
> > Do someone know if Epson's Archival Matte paper is 100% acid
> > free?
>
>This debate has raged on several forums, and I'm not sure we have a good
>answer to the more difficult question of whether EAM can be expected to last
>for long enough to be considered "archival" -- whatever that means.
>
>(I've never seen Epson admit that they changed the name due to concerns
>about pigments on EAM not being "archival."  The concern I've seen from
>Epson related only to the dye-based inks not being particularly long-lasting
>on EAM, and, this I believe, has nothing to due with acid in the paper.  The
>EAM surface is optimized for pigments, not dyes.  On the other hand, I
>strongly suspect that Epson really changed the name to avoid having to
>substantiate the representation that EAM was "archival.")
>
>At any rate, I have used one of the acid-testing pens on a number of papers.
>EAM does appear to have some acid in its base.
>
>So, it is not "acid free."
>
>But whether enough acid in the paper to do significant, long-term damage may
>be a much more difficult question. I believe EAM is made of wood pulp that
>has had the lignin removed.  So, it is lignin free, and lignin is apparently
>the source of most of the acid in modern wood-pulp papers.  (The older pulp
>processing apparently used acid, but I beleive such processes are no longer
>used for good, wood-pulp paper.)
>
>Cotton is the purest natural source of cellulose.  So, it is the starting
>material that is traditionally preferred for archival paper.  However,
>whether modern, lignin-free wood-pulp can make equally-pure or pure enough
>cellulose is unclear to me.  I assume that cellulose is the same chemical no
>matter whether it is from trees or cotton.
>
>I might add that the acid-testing pen appears to be easily fooled by cheap
>buffering.  As such, cheap newspaper that yellows and deteriorates quickly
>tests out with the pen as more acid-free than my fiber-based,
>archivally-processed silver prints.
>
>The fiber-based silver prints are probably not buffered, because such would
>be inconsistent with the acid stop bath we use.  (It might be fun to see how
>much a buffered paper sizzles in an acid stop bath.)  I've also read that
>Epson does not buffer EAM because buffering was not consistent with the
>maximizing image permanence -- which was (along with affordability, no
>doubt) a primary goal of EAM.
>
>I use EAM without much concern for the question of whether it is acid free
>or not.  My conclusion is that image permanence is the more important issue,
>and EAM is hard to beat on that score.  Of the papers I've tested, only
>Eclipse did arguably better -- but it's blacks were not as good.  I also use
>EAM because I like a smooth matte paper, and it produces about the best
>images I've seen.  When these attributes are added to the fact that EAM is
>just plain cheap, it's hard to find a better value.
>
>If I found that someone was willing to pay big bucks for my prints, but only
>if they were on a more "acid free" paper, I'd gladly print on Eclipse.  To
>date, no one has raised the issue (or offered big bucks for the prints,
>unfortunately).  So, I continue to use EAM.
>
>Paul
>http://www.PaulRoark.com