Digital BW, The Print

Flaking is the big problem with all of these papers. Torchon
definitely, all the H papers. There were reports of strange longevity
problems with Torchon, prints turning yellow, etc.. I was always sort
of attracted to it, except for it's extreme brightness. Maybe some
component added for that bright white added to the problems. So other
than a few quick tests I haven't worked with it. But I think that
large smooth rolling texture could be nice with large prints, maybe
overwhelm small prints. Impressive blacks.
The Entrada samples I tried were attractive, but I couldn't, again,
get a competative Dmax on it with the Piezotone inks I use. I think it
could be great with work that doesn't rely on a strong black.
I'm afraid I don't know how humidity may impact the flacking but It's
a real hassle. I recently made some prints for someone, the image had
a lot of black and very dark grays everywhere. He wanted PhotoRag. If
you brush it, you clearly see the brush strokes in large smooth dark
areas. After lots of failed prints, I got some keepers by gently
wiping the paper with a soft cloth so you couldn't see the wiping,
than had to quickly spray the resulting prints with Print Guard.
Spraying a lot of prints is definitely something I don't want to get
into. Interestingly, harder wiping (which may more effectively reduce
flacking) eliminated so much coating the Dmax went way down. Not good
for the particular image. Maybe wiping Torchon would be a better solution.
Hana claims to have changed the coating to fix flaking, but I've also
heard there is so much of the old on shelves everywhere we may not see
that for some time. That's just a rumor.
Tyler

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, James Irelan
<james@r...> wrote:
> Tyler,
> 
> I'm curious as to what you think of Torchon.  It was always my favorite 
> paper, although its very figured surface, beautiful on its own and  
> which disappears in colored areas, could be noticeable and therefore 
> distracting in very light expanses such as a pale sky.  The only reason 
> I stopped using it and have been looking for a replacement ever since 
> was its propensity to "flake", leaving white spots which are nearly 
> impossible to spot.  Brushing off the surface before printing does 
> improve one's odds for avoiding "flaking" (I've never been convinced 
> that something actually flakes off, because I've looked very carefully, 
> and never found a loose flake), but still, it's disheartening to print 
> a big print, especially, and find white spots.  But I've always got the 
> best reds with this paper.  Also, what is your reaction to Entrada?  
> Mine is that it looks very good with proper profiling, but it is more 
> difficult to profile than other papers.  And I've even seen some 
> flaking with it- not as bad as Hana papers, but occasionally- which 
> makes me suspect that the very dry conditions under which I print may 
> be part of the equation.
> 
> James