Digital BW, The Print

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mr_Misty_44" <jharvey@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 4:34 AM
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Coating, was Photogravure


> When I first asked about the permanence of InkJet VS Photogravure I
> mentioned a show I had seen at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The
> pamphlet accompanying the show has a bit on Paul Strand and the
> Photogravure editions of The Mexico Portfolio. One was done in 1940
> and the other in 1967.
>
>
>     " A heavy varnish, which has since darkened, was applied to the
> Photogravures in the first edition. By contrast, prints from the
> second edition appear much lighter in both tone and feeling"
>
> Just some food for thought
>
>                         John H

If the inks are already encapsulated like the Epson Ultrachromes are then
that can be considered enough for the image itself. The difference with the
gravure print and other printing technics is in the inkjet coating on the
paper. Due to its character it will stain faster than papers without a
coating. Most art papers usually only varied in the amount of sizing and the
surface being unpressed, cold pressed or hot pressed. Coating wasn't applied
or only an extra surface sizing for litho papers. Paper base can be
excellent for all printing processes including inkjet.  Cotton or alpha
cellulose or mixes of both.

There's a general attitude in the printing industry that varnishes may be
worse than the inks themselves.
In the past the risk of varnishes getting yellow or brittle on hardening and
UV exposure was something to count with. I'm using some of the best outdoor
vinyl inks in silkscreen printing: Sericol's Polyplast E series.
In the specs pages they advise to use them without an overprint varnish.
Only where the surface may be subject to abrasion etc they advise to use a
Polyplast varnish.

Wilhelm isn't fond of varnishes either. But in the light of his changed
ideas about fading including paper discolouring it could well be that he may
give another advice these days.

Looking back to what has been used in the past is of course a good idea. But
there have been huge changes in technics since then. We have learned from
restoration technics what wasn't so good then and what could be better now
(acryls for example). Epson inkjet technology has to compromise on some
aspects, among them paper coatings for detailed work. Of course the Iris
printers could print on art papers
without a coating. And inkjets using solvent ink or oil based inks are used
in another part of the market. However they will not print as nice on paper
as the Epsons we use. The Epson C series and their inks are better on
uncoated paper AFAIK, so were HP dye printers but then it means a compromise
on image quality and/or fading.

Ernst