Digital BW, The Print

Claude,

>> It's possible that encapsulated carbon could be better than
>> carbon-on-cotton in terms of protecting the image from damage, including
>> from moisture, air pollution, and oxidizing gasses.


> Yesterday I encapsulated my first EEM/UT print with a 1.3 mil glossy 
> lamintate. It revealed the subtle textures of that paper and 
>deepened the Dmax considerably.

Is there an easy way consumers can laminate without a major financial outlay
for a machine?

Does the lamination give a "plastic-covered" look to the image?  I'm not
that familiar with the materials, but recall thick, place-mat or other thick
ones that don't have a surface that is very appealing.

Epson materials do occasionally mention that lamination can protect the
image and extend its life.

> I also own a roller coating machine from Lacquer Mat, which is 
> really fast and even up to 16" wide. The bad news is it's 3 grand, but 

>I'd be willing to try Hydrocote if you will tell me where to get it. 
>I can send samples of whichever you might like to pass by 
>your densitometer.

I've had second thoughts about Hydrocote.  There are several reasons for
this.  So far, I have been unable to scale up the process of rod coating to
deal with large prints.  The coated prints never seem to totally lose the
tackiness that causes them to stick to things after being in a pile for a
while.  My chemist brother says polyurethane is subject to hydrolysis that
may make it break down too quickly.  I finally found a technician at a
company that makes a 2-componenet, solvent-based aliphatic polyurethane, and
the person said that the PUR would probably yellow over time even though it
was aliphatic.  My fade tests in high humidity indicated that the PUR-coated
sample faded faster.  I think the humidity got into the back of the print
and got trapped by the PUR.  I'm now thinking a back barrier is needed to
encapsulate the pigments.  That is one reason I'm interested in these
"barrier-papers" (RCs) that Epson is apparently making with materials
durable enough to last >200 years according to Wilhelm tests.

The Hydrocote experiments showed great promise, but it looks like there are
too many negatives to the process.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com