Digital BW, The Print

On 6/1/03 3:32 PM, "Daniel Staver" <daniel@...> wrote:

>> 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)

Well the main advantage...as you say...is being able to do it in a minute
instead of two hours!  In general the other advantage is higher dmax and
significantly lower cost.
 
> I'm using a 2100, so I'll never use sizes larger than 13x19...

Then the Mayer rod will work fine.

>> 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.

Then you will always be better off coating...I seriously doubt that any one
has plans to come out with a heavy textured gloss paper.
 
> 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?

Not necessary.  Traditionally in the inkjet world, this was because the RC
papers were only used with dye inks.  Now you can use 100% pigment inks with
them...so that was the major issue.  Another issue is how much optical
brightner they put in the RC papers...but once again there are comparable
papers for RC and matte if you are willing to tolerate a little bit of
brightnerer (which traditional BW silver printers were).


>> 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.

Well Fiber-Based Seleneium Toned Silver prints are the archival standard in
the wet darkroom (short of Platinum printing...which is a lower dmax, matte
paper methodology)...so that's what many of us are working towards.  These
papers do have pretty smooth surfaces though...so once again you are
probably better off coating if you really want texture.

Robert