Digital BW, The Print

Dear Clayton,

  thanks for being interested in my opinions.

Most of the aging processes you mentioned and the tests you also
mentioned (south window test, Wilhelm Research tests, Inkjet Mall
tests, etc.) are based on effect of UV rays on the materials of the
print. The UV do not make chemical reactions (they are photons), but
rather, physical reaction: they break some molecules and create free
radicals which are very reactive and cause the actual degradation, 
mostly trough oxidation. But the molecule to be broken must be there
in the first place. Therefore UV's only accelerate the process of aging.
 
Aging is almost always a consequence of oxidation. The documents in
the churches or monastery hardly received any UV because sacred
documents were never exposed to publics. They were, instead, conserved
accurately by religious peoples (like the monks in the monastery). 
Some of them deteriorated any way and some others, as Paul observed,
are still intact. Isn't the reason that obvious?
It depends on the substances contained in the paper and the ink.

You are certainly right. Impurities are among the culprit. They are
mostly heavy metals, oxidizing very quickly. The purest pigments dont
fade (remember, though, that paintings are coated with linseed oil,
which protects them from pollutants not from UV). Not the only
culprit: whatever is in the paper (including sizing) and the inks
makes a large contribution.

My suggestion for making fine art print is: shop in a fine art store,
not in computer store. We are lazy and pretend to make fine art prints
by clicking the mouse on the print button of your computer program.
Corporations know that and sell us their quick solutions with the
illusion of turning a newbie into an artist overnight.
Fine art is never quick. How many hours did you spend in your darkroom
washing and toning your fiber based silver prints? Those who did it
know the answer.
Another suggestion I would give is: do not trust the hype from large
corporations. Fifteen years ago I was making Cibachrome in my
darkrooms and sold them as 100 years archival, as was the hype of the
time. I process them myself: fresh chemicals and long wash in running
water. The ones I have today (stored in a dark place), all have
shifted colors!!! 

Today, I would recommend two processes for fine-art printing:

1) Silver-gelatine printing on fiber based paper, with appropriate
washing and toning. If the chemicals are washed away, what remains are
just the paper, the gelatine and the toned silver. All very long lived.

2) Inkjet printing with appropriate paper, ink and methodology. By
appropriate I mean the following:
a) Papers. Please, stop at Blick or any other large fine art store and
just touch a fine art (uncoated) paper made with 100% cotton. Can you
tell the difference from a coated inkjet paper? They are made to last
centuries
b) learn to print on that paper. It is not easy. You need to
experiment as any artist does. Understand that those papers reacts in
a different way than inkjet paper, and also from one another. Paul
Roark and Clayton Jones are the people to learn from.
c) Forget about that bloody d-max. It has nothing to do with the
beauty of your artwork. If you print with ink, you must compare your
print with similar techniques like lithography, etching or
"acquaforte" (I dont know the English translation for it), not with
photographs. If you want to make fine art with high d-max, go back to
your darkroom
d) ink. This is the difficult part. Fine art artists prepare their own
oil paints or inks starting from pure pigments. The only premade ink
that I know to be suited in fine art is India ink (in Italy, China
ink). We tested it in an inkjet and it is a nightmare, because you
need to keep the printing head wet all the time (as with Rapidograph
pens). Preparing your own inkjet fine art ink is very easy because you
can do that with natural ingredients. What makes it impossible today
is that you will not find over the shelves the pigments with the
correct diameter (much smaller than what available at fine art stores
for oil paints). I have tried to purchase them in small quantities and
had no success. Therefore, we need to use what is available
commercially and trust the seller. OEM ink usually has dyes and
pigments (for better d-max and colder tones). Personally, I stay clear
of it. Brands I am comfortably with are: MIS Eboni, IS Matte Black and
Cone's.
e) dilute them with your own base made with natural substances (as all
fine art dilutives - also India ink contain all natural ingredients).
You know what you put in. It will probably not hold in suspension the
pigments for long time. Then, shake them often and prepare them as
freshly as you can (as you would do with the chemicals in your darkroom).
f) wash you final print in running water. It takes away the chemicals
that were in the pre-made ink. 

  Mantinieri
www.mantinieri.com     



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Clayton Price
<clay@...> wrote:
>
> Until not so long ago, all the Epson papers were acidic. Complaints  
> by many about the longevity of Epson Archival Matte paper, rather  
> than correct the problem, resulted in them changing the name to  
> Enhanced Matte. The pH remained the same - definitely in the acidic  
> range - around  5.5, as I recall.  So much for Epson - who as  
> Mantinieri pointed out, is a large corporation who makes their money  
> from paper and inks, especially, which is the reason one can buy a  
> variety of quite good printers for  very reasonable prices.
> 
> That said, there are some errors in Mantinieri's logic -  
> 																		First is Silica - one of the more stable compounds  
> around - Silicon Dioxide (basically sand, and the major ingredient of  
> glass).  It's formula, SiO2 already has the maximum number of Oxygen  
> atoms possible, and really doesn't react with the paper. Documents  
> over 100 years old in Italy or anywhere else could have a variety of  
> chemicals and UV causing degradation - Why?  Because papers had all  
> kinds of impurities and very likely were most any pH, since for the  
> most part there was no science to help them with the manufacturing  
> process. And I'm curious how he could know they weren't exposed to a  
> high UV content? After all, putting them behind glass, is a  
> relatively recent museum occurrence when looked at within the time  
> frame of history!
> 
> Back to the present, both the current Epson inks (Ultra Chrome K3,  
> and Jon Cone's Piezo inks both use some variation of Ethylene Glycol  
> as the major carrier to hold the dispersed pigments. Perhaps there's  
> some chemical reactions, but if the inks are truly pigments, the  
> chances are they remain mostly archival and stable. There could very  
> well be some reactions with certain papers, which could cause  
> staining, yellowing, etc. Am I wrong that Wilhelm only tests the  
> inks, but not the papers?
> 
> For whatever it's worth. real world testing of ink/paper  
> combinations, IMO, work best in a window, with a lot of sun. My  
> experience with Cone's inks has been that they hold up extremely  
> well, even after six consecutive months in a south facing  window.  
> I've not done this with the Epson Inks yet - I'm tending to assume  
> the testing I've read is mostly accurate.  I print almost everything  
> on Photo Rag paper, which I know is pH neutral.
> 
> If that doesn't impress you, consider - that putting a watercolor  
> painting in the window will give you perhaps 3 or 3 days before  
> noticeable fading starts to occur. (And that is primarily from UV &  
> oxidation). However if you take a look at 16th and 17th century  
> paintings, you'll almost never see color degradation, other than dirt  
> and varnishes darkening with time. When those paintings are cleaned  
> up, the experts tell us that they are almost exactly like they were  
> when created.  Why is this? It's because high quality pigments hardly  
> ever oxidize or fade from UV.																					
> 
> That said, who in their right mind would put a priceless painting  
> into a UV or bright sun situation? Ditto for watercolors, both  
> contemporary and historic, as well as old and new photographs -- no  
> matter what process they were crafted from?
> 
> Finally, I'd ask Mantinieri what process you would use and/or suggest  
> to others, for creating our own contemporary photographic prints that  
> will last? Certainly "C" Prints both conventional and digital (both  
> of which use the same chemistry) are no more archival than some other  
> processes, no matter what the hype about them is, and my guess is  
> that they would be less archival than carbon pigment prints on cotton  
> pH neutral papers.
> 
> Clayton Price
> 
> Mantinieri wrote:																											.... You can assume that  
> the substances present in the paper, paper sizing and the ink are  
> quite natural, given the status of chemistry at that time and that  
> the amount of UV seen by those documents is pretty low, given the way  
> theyare conserved. Nonetheless, the old documents deteriorate. The  
> main culprit is not UV. It is oxidations....
> 
> 
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