Digital BW, The Print

Robert,

A couple of questions. Did you try the small white foam rollers? I 
have some but never got around to using them.

Any comments on the dust-in-the-coating problem when using the hair 
drier?

I do feel that if you know you are going to coat a print you will 
need to print it lighter. I put a BRightness/Contrast layer on the 
top of the image to control this. Depending upon the paper I believe 
a -10% to - 30% Brightness might be called for. A curve would be a 
better choice so that Dmax is not effected but will take a bit more 
work. If you are sticking to one or two papers then it would be very 
worthwhile to work this out for those papers.

Martin

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Robert Morrison 
<rmorrison@p...> wrote:
> This message is cross posted at the PiezoBW and Digital BW lists.
> 
> As many of you know I'm trying to develop a commercially available 
coating
> system that would be applied after printing to ink jet prints on 
fine art
> paper (not gloss or satin papers)...particularly for pigment inks 
(Epson
> 2000P/7500/10000, Piezo BW and Color and MIS).  The system consists 
of two
> parts...a sealer and then a top coat.  Both parts are water-based.  
My
> previous tests showed prints with outstanding depth and 
dimensionality (like
> an glazed oil painting) with a 100% improvement in lighfastness as 
measure
> by dmax after a 6 week full LA sun fade.
> 
> I believe that the following comments will apply to those of you 
who are
> doing your own post-printing coating experiments.
> 
> I just completed tests on the following print/paper combinations:
> 
> Hahnemuhle PhotoRag 309g, PiezoBW, Orwell Profile (Royal Renissance)
> 
> Museo 355g, PiezoBW, Orwell Profile
> 
> Eclipse Velvet 350g, PiezoBW, Orwell Profile
> 
> Eclipse Velvet 350g, PiezoBW inks with Epson Driver and bumped up 
blacks
> 
> I also tested all of these papers with Color Piezo using the Epson 
Driver
> and the Orwell profile supplied by Cone.
> 
> Notes:
> 
> Application methods--many have expressed hesitance in coating 
because of the
> time that it would take.  To try to minimize this I tried a 7" 
roller from
> Home Depot.  The roller cover has a 1/4" nap.  The roller was $2 
and the
> covers were 10 for $10 (cheap! compared to a $30 varnish brush).  I 
used a
> plastic tray made for these rollers ($1.50) which cleaned out 
easily.  I
> began by pre-wetting the roller pad and then using my hand to 
squeeze out
> excess water.  The seal coat went down very easily.   The top coat 
had some
> bubbles that disappeared within 30 seconds.  I work on a 2 x 4 ft 
piece of
> laminate for easy clean up.
> 
> I coated 20 5x7 prints in about 3 minutes.  I used a hair dryer on 
cool to
> briefly dry the prints (about 5 minutes of effort). I waited 5-10 
minutes
> for the seal coat to dry and then applied another coat (about 3 
minutes).  I
> then repeated the procedure with the hair dryer and applied 2 coats 
of the
> top coat.  It took about an hour beginning to end with my actually 
doing
> something for about 30 minutes.  The prints were completely dry 
about 4
> hours later.  I would recommend allowing the sealer to dry longer 
in the
> future...but this would just be a wait...no additional working 
time.  The
> hair dryer is handy if bubbles appear because of the roller.
> 
> 
> Papers:
> 
> As I've mentioned in the past, the best papers to coat are heavy 
ones.  You
> can get acceptable results on lighter papers but they wrinkle more 
during
> application and so you have to pay more attention to drips and 
runs.  The
> papers tested are ideal for coating because of their weight.  I'm 
also
> looking forward to testing Somerset Enhanced 330g when a sample 
arrives.
> 
> All papers coated easily.  Hahemuhle papers tend to take more 
coating...so
> while I applied 2 coats of sealer and 2 coats of top coat...I 
probably only
> needed 1 coat of top coat for Eclipse and Museo...but applied two 
because of
> the Photo Rag.
> 
> Final Results:
> 
> Eclipse and Museo give beautiful coated prints.  They have a light 
sheen
> that doesn't look at all plastic.  Its not a high gloss like a photo
> paper...the print still has the character of something printed on a 
fine art
> paper.  Blacks (and colors in the Color Piezo prints) are rich and 
deep.
> The prints appear to be dimensional compared to their uncoated 
companions.
> Looking straight on you don't notice the gloss...you just see a 
rich deep
> print...to the side the print glares some.
> 
> Photo Rag, like Orwell and Wells River, coats well but the 
character of the
> print changes.  It seems that the entire range of grays (including 
black)
> increases in intensity to the point that the shadows tend to get 
muddy.  I
> think this could be corrected by printing a slightly lighter 
print...but it
> would require some tweaking...probably using a correction layer 
before you
> do your final tone correction.  Its interesting that this is not 
because the
> blacks in the Hahnemuhle papers are strongest.  The Epson Driver 
printed
> Eclipse has blacks that are as strong, if not stronger than the 
Photo Rag,
> but does not show this behavior.  In my prescreen of about a dozen 
different
> papers, only the Hahnemule papers showed this behavior.
> 
> Hope that helps...I'd be interested in hearing comments from others 
who have
> been experimenting with coating.
> 
> Robert
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----------------------
> Robert Morrison
> rmorrison@p...
> 
> 310-397-2704
> 
> 4131 Bledsoe Ave.
> Los Angeles, CA 90066
> 
> ------ End of Forwarded Message