Digital BW, The Print

> pr_roark wrote:
> > One of the significant things I've found is that briefly 
> > rinsing Arches has very little impact on the image. 

John Labovitz <johnl@...> wrote: 

> ...
> I'm familiar with rinsing/soaking paper when doing intaglio etching work.  That's done in part to remove the sizing, and in part to make the paper more pliable for the impression of the plate.  Obviously inkjet is a whole different thing, but I wonder whether you've experimented with any sort of pre-moistening of the paper, and whether that would reduce the ink saturation?

The only pre- & post-soaking I've done is to get rid of water marks in jet black skies.  With a try of distilled water I've quickly pulled the print through first, done a brief surface rinse with tap water and then pulled the print through a second time and patted it dry.  This results in less paper curl and no water marks.  

With respect to curl, a dry mount press flattens Arches very well.  If both sides of the paper are soaked with a pull through the try, however, no press is needed at all.

One would assume, of course, that the more washing, the more ink is lost.  There have been too many variables in my experiments so far to know what the ink loss to rinse time curve looks like.  I think it's non-linear, in that the loss stuff comes off first.  Randy Rancier has done more extensive soaking, and at some point the gelatin apparently becomes transparent.  Oddly, both Randy and I have noticed a very slight increase in mid-tone densities.  I'm not sure if this is real or an artifact.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com