Digital BW, The Print

Hello Sam,

>I'd appreciate any advice about how to make any of this more robust.

If you haven't already, get a sample of Museo Max.  It's so tough you
can't scrape it off with a fingernail, so it will certainly resist the
abrasion of being in a stack of cards, being handled, etc.  All other
papers I've tried can be scraped off, with verying degrees of pressure.

As for water, I just did some tests with some old work prints

K3 on VFA
K3 on Max
K3 on Innova Fiba
K3 on Innova Sm Cotton
K3 on Innova Soft Texture
K3 on Moab Kayenta
UT7 on Condor BW
Eboni BO on Condor BW
Eboni BO on Merlin Sm
Eboni BO on PR
Eboni BO on Aurora
Eboni BO on EEM

I held them under running water until thoroughly soaked.  None of them
bled or ran from the force of the running water.  I then did two tests:

Smear Test - rubbed lightly with my thumb.  Two papers failed the
smear test: EEM and Merlin Sm.  They smeared almost instantly (by
"smear" I mean the ink [or the coating containing it] liquified and
"ran").  VFA didn't smear, but the ink came off in patches with very
little rubbing pressure - it was very delicate.  All the rest except
Max were similar in that they didn't smear but eventually came off
with increased pressure.  Max was the most resistant.  Only under the
most extreme pressure it looked a bit abrased.  But it never came off.
Condor BW and PR were nearly as tough as Max.

Scrape Test - scraped them with a thumbnail.  They all could be
scraped off pretty easily, but the Max was the most resistant.  VFA
was the least resistant.   

To summarize, when wet Max seems to be the toughest, followed by
Condor BW and PR, with VFA being the most delicate (however, VFA is
very abrasion resistant when dry, as is Kayenta which is just average
when wet).


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm