Digital BW, The Print

Dear Mitch,

 ³Does anyone have experience laminating Luster?²
> 
--Mitch/Bangkok

I do...

I also apologise in advance for the length of this reply.

It just so happens I tried an experiment two weeks ago,
since I wanted to see what would happen to the image,
and if Epson¹s Premium Lustre could handle the lamination
process.  I want to compare the result against a laminated
matte paper, once I have an image available on that paper
surface.  For the moment I do not...

I also wanted to see if the process would eliminate
metamerism, present in my Premium Lustre paper
images, since I like the paper¹s tonal range.  I am
struggling with the thought of migrating to a matte paper,
to obtain some assurance of an archival quality, and I am
trying to see if the lamination process will let me stay in
the lustre¹s tonal ball park, with an archival quality.

A local print house, offers this service to professional
photographers and anyone that might require this service,
if they are displaying their completed images outdoors, in
a harsh physical environment and, or where physical human
contact could be an issue, such as a display banner.  This
service is offered to a client whether their finished image
is an inkjet image, or not.

They offer two processes.  A cold laminate process and a
hot laminate process, where the cold laminate process is
³possibly² less damaging to the ink jet image.

The cold lamination process was very popular, in the print
house¹s opinion.  Several local special events, required the
participant to laminate their images.  This practice, for
what ever reason, is not done any more, and the local
print house will offer the service, but for an exorbitant
price.  They indicated that they do not wish to carry the
cost of the cold laminate inventory.

The hot lamination material used by the print house,
is called ³DryTac,² and the cold lamination material
is called ³Protac.²

Information is available here:

    <http://www.drytac.com/>

Another good source of information is available here:

    <http://www.signindustry.com/finishing/>

I would look for a short three part article on laminating.


What I learned from the application technician, and what I
saw in the final form, is as follows:

    1.  The hot lamination process produced a better
         final result, but the process is not recommended
         by the local print house.

         The technician indicated that the process is
         labour intensive, often results in a damaged
         image, a customer that demands restitution,
         and requires a technician that is highly skilled
         in the ³art² of lamination.  Not everyone has
         that skill level and, or patience, to complete the
         task properly.

    2.  The hot lamination process requires the image to
         be perfectly and thoroughly dry.  If the image is
         ³fresh² off the printer, and the hot lamination
         process is initiated within a 36 hour window, the
         hot lamination process can ³boil² the inks and
         produce blisters.  This can also be attributed to
         any entrained gas in the image¹s ink.  I did not
         ask for any technical information regarding this
         issue, nor did the technician offer any.

         The technician, did not process the image within
         a 36 hour window.  He waited 10 full days until
         he initiated the hot lamination process.  My image
         was laid flat on a plastic coated screen in their
         production area, specifically designed to air dry
         images from their own processes.

         The image was covered with paper, normally
         used to wrap the finished product in, to protect
         the image from airborne particles, until the
         process began.

         I asked the technician why he waited the 10 days,
         and he simply answered, ³experience says so.²
 
    3.  I asked the local print house if the distributor
         could supply any archival information for the
         processes, and unfortunately they could not,
         which I interpreted as they did not know and,
         or they did not want to put anything in writing.
         I asked them to pursue this issue with the
         distributor, but I have not heard any further
         comments to date.

    4.  The hot lamination process offers a few different
         ³mil² laminates, and the application technician
         chose a ³10 mil² laminate for my test.  A ³5 mil²
         laminate was available, but the technician indicated
         the resulting gloss would ³not be good enough.²

         The surface of the image was coated in the process,
         but not the back of the image, although this can be
         done with the same material and, or different
         materials.

         The resulting laminated image showed no signs of
         damage from the hot laminate process, and I
         truly expected the image to be damaged in
         the process.

         The technician always handled the image with
         cotton photographic gloves, wiped the image
         clean with a cotton cloth, and he did not use a
         ³sticky roller² to remove any dust particles from
         the surface of the print, which they do for all
         other image materials.  The technician indicated
         that this was a precautionary measure to prevent
         the inkjet image from possibly lifting off the
         surface of the paper, and on to the sticky surfaced
         roller.

         The technician indicated that any entrained dust,
         between the surface of the print and the laminate,
         would be magnified ten fold.  He said they look
         like ³mountains.²  My finished image did not show
         any of these artefacts, but everyone should be
         aware that this situation might happen, if the
         technician is not thorough in his, or her approach,
         to removing any surface dust particles.

         They also wipe the image as the image is pulled
         through the heated pressurized rollers.

    5.  The hot laminated image was outstanding.
         Epson¹s glossy paper looks like a very poor
         cousin, compared to the finished result.  My
         image looks like it is under a piece of glass,
         one eighth of an inch thick.  All I can say
         is ³wow.²

         The image does not curl, but could lay a bit
         flatter if the image was laminated in the back,
         with the same material.  The image also gained
         significant physical weight, because of laminate
         material.

         The image does not show any signs of incomplete
         adhesion to the surface.  The image does not
         show any signs of tiny pockets of entrained air
         bubbles.

    6.  The cold process laminate image failed in
         comparison.  The laminate is only ³3 mil²
         and the gloss, although deeper than the
         Epson gloss, was ³blotchy² at best.  I
         did not like that material process.

         The process probably failed, and I am not
         certain of this, because the adhesive does
         not meld with the lustre surface properly, as
         compared to the hot laminate process, where
         the adhesive is physically melted onto the
         surface of the image.  The hot laminate process,
         which I believe is used at my local print house,
         is a low temperature thermal film that melts at
         a temperature of 190 degrees Fahrenheit.

         The cold laminate process showed minute signs
         of incomplete adhesion, for what ever reason,
         and it just did not look good at all.

         The technician told me, that the cold lamination
         process requires that you ³roll² the finished image
         with the image on the outside of the roll, as
         compared to the inside of the roll.

         The finished image can not stay in the rolled
         position for very long, since the material does
         not stretch very well.  If the image is rolled
         with the image on the inside of the roll, the
         image could be introduced to an effect named
         channelling, where the laminate will break
         away from the surface of the print, and produce
         a long raised ³bubble like² artefact, parallel to
         the roll of the image.

The end result is that I am pleased with the hot laminate
process, compared to the cold laminate process.  The hot
laminated process produced a gloss that was unbelievably
deep and rich.  Absolutely amazing depth...

The processes might be archival, but I am not able to
acquire information as to whether this is true or not.

I do not know if the lamination processes introduce
incremental damage to the image, but I would bet
heavily in favour of that, especially the hot laminate
process.

I do not know if the laminates will ³yellow² with
age.

The processes are supposed to reduce contaminant
exposure and, or UV contamination, but again I can
not find definitive information regarding these facts.

I could not get an answer from the technician, whether
the print would eventually lift away from the laminate,
and if I should laminate both sides of the print to
protect it.  My logic dictates that I would not do both
sides of the image, since I dry mount my images
to acid free museum rag board.  He did mention
however, that the issue might be more prominent with
the cold laminate process, but his knowledge of archival
matters was very limited.

That said, I tried this process to see if it would work,
to see if the laminate would adhere to the lustre
paper, to see if I could get a deep gloss that stood
out from the crowd, and to see if the process would
eliminate and, or reduce metamerism present in my
images printed on a 9600 using UC inks.

The hot process produced a better result, but it did
not completely eliminate the metamerism issue.
Metamerism was definitely reduced, but not eliminated.

So, I hope this lengthy response helps you in some way,
but you are probably more aware of the lamination
process than I am, since you are more experienced in this
arena. I know I will continue to investigate the lamination
process for a while, to see what it has to offer...


jim k




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]