Digital BW, The Print

Nij wrote:

> I know very little about coatings technology - but I have noticed that firm
> brushing of Somerset Velvet Enhanced results in a very fine white dust
> coming off the paper!!! This does not happen, to my eyes, with Hahnemhler
> papers.
>
> I wonder then, if SVE uses 'straight' chalk as a coating, and it is this
> that encourages the dye to commute away from the surface and into the
> paper... hence it's marked warming... whereas H* does something different
> which is not so based around Calcium carbonate???
>
> In other words, selection of paper coating will (as we already know from
> experience) that coating will dramatically effect print longevity, but that
> (perhaps) pigmented inks have a harder time as the dyes are so 'likely' to
> handle a coating differently from the pigments.

The inkjet paper coatings are not, as far as I know either chalk or calcium carbonate.  They are more like a
'gelatin' coating or a 'sizing' to the paper.  Although I believe gelatin coatings do not work well with
inkjet technology.  The concept of the coatings is to actually keep the ink *off* the paper.

The calcium carbonate additions to paper are added, I believe, in the pulp/slurry part of the process.

Harvey Ferdschneider
partner, SKID Photography, NYC





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