Digital BW, The Print

> There is an extensive discussion on coating in the archives 
> on this list...dating back more than a year.  Search under 
> coating and also hyrocote.  Paul Roark, Martin Wesley, Mark 
> Tucker and I (Robert Morrison) have contributed a good bit of 
> information.  There is also a lot of info on the Yahoo wide 
> format list from Mark Tucker.

Thanks! I'll have a look in the archives.

> clear superpoly <www.hydrocote.com> , which is a water-based 
> aliphatic polyurethane made for preserving wood.  It is 
> "non-yellowing" and relatively non-toxic, but ventilation and 
> gloves are a good idea.  A single #30 Mayer Rod coat of 
> Hydrocote (takes less than 1 minute for an 8x10...start to 
> finish) will product better results than you are currently getting.

That sounds tempting. I'm definitely going to aquire a rod, and I'll
consider the hydrocote as well. In what way will the results from the
Hydrocote be better than what I'm currently getting? (Besides only
having to use one coat of course) 

I'm using a 2100, so I'll never use sizes larger than 13x19... 

> I've spent a lot of time on this...I've also spent a huge 
> amount of time testing the possibilities of using the new 
> "photo" inks like the Ultrachromes (or MIS's new Ultraquad 
> inks) on RC papers to get similar effects.  The prints you 
> can get from the 2200 using a driver like Ink Jet Control or 
> Imageprint may make coating unnecessary.  Personally, I still 
> like the coated prints because of a complete absence of 
> bronzing...which tends to be a problem with the RC papers.  
> In the end the RC papers will always have some glare problem 
> because there is no, or very little ink laid down in 
> highlights.  We may be able avoid both by spraying these 
> papers with a light coat of Krylon Kamvar varnish or the 
> like.  This workflow may be easier.

The bronzing is definitely an issue, and I'd like to avoid that
entirely. I actually quite like the texture of fine-art papers, and
prefer it to RC papers. That's one of the reasons I'm so excited about
the coating, I get to keep the texture of the paper while I get the
D-max of RC papers. 

Also, isn't the archivability of all of todays RC papers much lower than
matte papers? Or is that changing with the inroduction of new papers?

> Another interesting possiblity are the emergence of 
> fiber-based gloss inkjet papers...which will begin to enter 
> the market at the end of the summer.

I must admit I have no clue whatsoever as to what a fiber-based print
might look like, traditional or otherwise. But it'll be interesting to
see what it looks like since there's so much talk about it. I've grown
up with the computer as my my primary tool for creativity, and got into
photography much later, so skipping all traditional processes and
jumping straight into the filmscanner/digital/inkjet combo seemed much
more natural for me. This means I have little or no previous reference
for what my prints should look like. All I want is for them to look
really, really good.

--
Daniel Staver
http://daniel.staver.no