Digital BW, The Print

Yea, I don't get what he is talking about there either. I've been using the Premier Art and 
Lyson Printguard, which is essentially the same thing, for nearly four years. To say it does 
not protect against flaking is just plain wrong. I do a ton of work on Hahnemuhle Photo 
Rag, German Etching, and William Turner rag, all of which can flake and skuff badly when a 
lot of blacks are laid down. These sprays not only help, but they help significantly. I also 
use them with all the canvas pigment prints I do as well as Premium Luster, Enhanced 
Matte, and Legion Matte. It improves the surface of all this media is a big way. You should 
give one light coat, then wait 5 minutes and so another light coat. It is still a good idea to 
brush your rag rolls lightly to remove any loose coating on the surface BEFORE printing. If 
you use the new Ultra Smooth rag media then these sprays make that media almost 
indestructable because the coating is so far down in the media, rather than on top. This is 
what I do for hand made book projects.

When it comes to dual sided rag and matte media, it can mean the difference between a 
book project being feasable or not.  

The only down side I have ever seen with Premier Art or Lyson Printguard is that when 
printing carbon pigment monochrome prints that contain a lot of pure black, that the d-
max can be reduced a little. In that case I use another archival non-yellowing spray called 
Lascaux. Lascaux protects against flaking, skuffing and scratching, but does not have the 
major uv protection that the other two sprays exhibit. Paul Roark told us about this on the 
digital black and white yahoo list. He has experimented with a lot of these sprays.

For me these sprays complete the UltraChrome process and bring them close to the uv
stability range of my Epson 10K pigment printer. Without them I wouldn't even be printing 
on Photo Rag at all.

John


> So, even if it doesn't help with flaking, and doesn't add DMax as it 
> does on the glossy papers, I wouldn't say it "doesn't really work on 
> matte papers".
> 
> 
> 	Walt