Digital BW, The Print

A while back there was discourse about overspraying prints in order 
to reduce/prevent flaking of the coating. One of the questions I had 
was whether or not overspraying would cause changes in density or 
color. I bought four different cans of Krylon products - Workable 
Fixatif, Low Odor Matte, Kamar and Ultraviolet protective Clear. I 
printed a step wedge on Eclipse Satine 190 in two positions per 
sheet using MIS FSN Quad using an Epson 860 with a MIS CIS. One of 
the step wedges was spayed on each sheet using one of the products 
and allowed to dry. The steps were then read with an ESECO 
CompuMaster reflection densitometer.

The Low odor Matte is not useful for this pupose. It produces a 
yucky platic appearing surface. It also tended to spray unevenly 
since it is latex based and fairly thick.

The Kamar went on evenly and did not produce a noticible coating but 
it did cause a significant increase in densities particularly at the 
high end of the curve. 25% - 0.3, 0.37; 50% 0.59, 0.77; 75% - 1.01, 
1.27; 100% - 1.54, 1.68

UV Resistent Clear is an acrylic based products that went on evenly 
and did not produce an obvious coated look. It also produced an 
increase in density but not quite as much as Kamar. 25% - 0.3, 0.36; 
50% - 0.59, 0.71; 75% - 0.99, 1.16; 100% - 1.53, 1.56

Workable Fixatif went on evenly and did not produce an obvious 
coated look. It produced no significant change in density along the 
scale with the differences being only + or - 0.01 which is the limit 
of reproducibility of the densitometer.

To my view the workable fixatif might be the preferable product to 
use since it produced no significant change in densities. 

I'll add Lyson Print Guard and Lascaux Fixativ (if I can swipe it 
from my wife's studio) to the list but with the Krylon products 
being less than one third as expensive I hope the Workable Fixatif 
ends up being a winner.

The next step will be to put these in a south window and let the New 
Mexico sun do its thing for a month to check for yellowing and the 
like.

Roger