Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: huguito on March 05, 2014, 06:12:22 pm
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I see a new paper in the epson line.
"Exhibition Watercolor textured", does anyone here knows if this is a rename and repackage of the old "Watercolor radiant white"?
Anyone has run this paper through their printer? First impressions?
Hugo
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I see a new paper in the epson line.
"Exhibition Watercolor textured", does anyone here knows if this is a rename and repackage of the old "Watercolor radiant white"?
Anyone has run this paper through their printer? First impressions?
Hugo
No, it is a new paper. Or at least new to Epson branded papers.
Brian A
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Have you had the chance to try it?
I like the old watercolor radiant, I wonder how different this is
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Epson claims no OBAs with this new paper, so it's definitely not a rebadged "Radiant white". That said I wish Epson had been a little more imaginative and kept the "Exhibition" part of the name out of the new paper. Only adds to confusion with Epson Exhibition Fiber (EEF) which is a whole other beast altogether. EEF should be pulled from the "Signature Worthy" line or reformulated.
cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
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Have you had the chance to try it?
I like the old watercolor radiant, I wonder how different this is
No, I have yet to try it, but there are so many excellent and well proven watercolor papers available, I probably never will. [I never liked the Epson Watercolor Radiant White paper. A fine art paper it never was.]
Brian A
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I don't rate Epson papers papers highly for anything except short-term display (Exhibition Fibre is great for that, particularly if the image runs on the cooler side).
I prefer Breathing Colour's Pura Smooth/Velvet (the OBA-free versions of Optica and Elegance) - their gamut seem good for matte papers and Breathing Colour papers seem to be among the most lightfast out there, when compared with other papers using the same inkset.
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I don't rate Epson papers papers highly for anything except short-term display (Exhibition Fibre is great for that, particularly if the image runs on the cooler side).
I prefer Breathing Colour's Pura Smooth/Velvet (the OBA-free versions of Optica and Elegance) - their gamut seem good for matte papers and Breathing Colour papers seem to be among the most lightfast out there, when compared with other papers using the same inkset.
It is interesting how personal paper choice is:
I have a print that sells well on Breathing Color Elegance Velvet. I print on it that because it that is what it was originally printed on. But otherwise it would be on Canson BFK Rives.
I can’t see a BC paper that I would recommend over another paper. , For example, Canson Rag Photographique I find far superior to BC Pura Smooth – it is whiter, smoother, holds a wider gamut, and doesn’t have the same curling problems.
Brian A
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It is interesting how personal paper choice is:
I have a print that sells well on Breathing Color Elegance Velvet. I print on it that because it that is what it was originally printed on. But otherwise it would be on Canson BFK Rives.
I can’t see a BC paper that I would recommend over another paper. , For example, Canson Rag Photographique I find far superior to BC Pura Smooth – it is whiter, smoother, holds a wider gamut, and doesn’t have the same curling problems.
Brian A
I like the Rag Photographique and Etching Rag for their texture, but their tested image permanence seems to be lacking in comparison to Hahnemuhle or Breathing Colour. They're great for black-and-white, though (since pure carbon inks are essentially permanent).
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I have a box of the new Exhibition Textured Watercolor paper coming from Atlex.
I will let you guys know what it looks like after my 9600 spits some out
Hugo
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I have a box of the new Exhibition Textured Watercolor paper coming from Atlex.
I will let you guys know what it looks like after my 9600 spits some out
Hugo
Not withstanding my earlier terse comments about Epson naming conventions and EEF longevity issues, I think Epson management has been paying attention to the OBA burnout/discoloration concerns many of us in the printmaking community have and is working earnestly to give us more options. I see new additions of OBA-free canvas and OBA-free papers to Epson's line of media, Exhibition Watercolor being the latest one, and that's a good thing. Now, if the Epson team will just give us a more robust yellow pigment, we will then be reaching new heights of ink/media performance when it comes to digital fine art print permanence.
best,
Mark
htttp:/www.aardenburg-imaging.com
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I got a box of this paper today. Is bright and white.
Made my own profile with a color munki
Seem to soak ink a lot and come up muddy printing as profiled, a second try with the ink density reduced 20% come up very nice.
Colors have a lot of pop, more than other matte papers, nice contrast.
The image had a lot of colors, probably will make nice Black and whites with so much contrast as it has.
Looks very nice on the wall, specially after a light coat of Clear Jet coating, the one with lowest gloss
Doesn't quite have the quality creamy feel when you hold it in your hand as the other new Epson paper, the Exhibition Hot Press Bright I just tried.
Hugo
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Have been testing a lot with BC Pura Velvet as a canvas replacement. Very similar in look to Epson Cold Press Bright, but without the OBA's. The Epson white point is just a 'tich higher and a 'tich cooler than the Pura, but Pura is a lot better down towards the d-max range and the prints are surprisingly bright and neutral looking. Pura has a slightly subtler, less polarized texture than the Epson Cold Press.
Pura coats very well with ordinary canvas varnishes which is for practical reasons is my main interest, and the reason I would use it over some other matte papers like Rag Photographique that do not varnish very well. For Pura, two generous, sprayed coats gives a nice satin-like gloss. For that matter, Epson Cold Press paper coats well too, but it takes about 3 coats to get the same level of gloss. Oh, and for those having issues with ink lifting during rolling, neither Pura nor Epson Cold Press Bright seem to have an issue with that.
Profiles from coated Pura targets show a considerable increase in gamut and a much lower d-max. Like all varnished fine art papers, coating pulls the darker tones down quite a bit and that's best compensated for via the printing profile which should be made from a carefully coated target. Very pretty paper, definitely artsy and portrait-friendly, but in no way too prissy for landscapes or hard edge subjects. If I really lay on the coatings I can get a super gloss with a look that rivals face-mounted glossies, but with some residual ripple that may or may not be a problem depending on the presentation.
If BC would give me Pura on those nice, generous 50 foot rolls just like Epson does, that would be very nice. But in any case, as a canvas veteran it sure feels nice to use media with zero manufacturing defects, yeah baby! BC and Epson are both coming through nicely on the QC.
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My favorite textured paper is Hahnemule William Turner which has a nice bright white. Don't know that a new Epson entry would make me want to change.
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Have been testing a lot with BC Pura Velvet as a canvas replacement. Very similar in look to Epson Cold Press Bright, but without the OBA's. The Epson white point is just a 'tich higher and a 'tich cooler than the Pura, but Pura is a lot better down towards the d-max range and the prints are surprisingly bright and neutral looking. Pura has a slightly subtler, less polarized texture than the Epson Cold Press.
Pura coats very well with ordinary canvas varnishes which is for practical reasons is my main interest, and the reason I would use it over some other matte papers like Rag Photographique that do not varnish very well. For Pura, two generous, sprayed coats gives a nice satin-like gloss. For that matter, Epson Cold Press paper coats well too, but it takes about 3 coats to get the same level of gloss. Oh, and for those having issues with ink lifting during rolling, neither Pura nor Epson Cold Press Bright seem to have an issue with that.
Profiles from coated Pura targets show a considerable increase in gamut and a much lower d-max. Like all varnished fine art papers, coating pulls the darker tones down quite a bit and that's best compensated for via the printing profile which should be made from a carefully coated target. Very pretty paper, definitely artsy and portrait-friendly, but in no way too prissy for landscapes or hard edge subjects. If I really lay on the coatings I can get a super gloss with a look that rivals face-mounted glossies, but with some residual ripple that may or may not be a problem depending on the presentation.
If BC would give me Pura on those nice, generous 50 foot rolls just like Epson does, that would be very nice. But in any case, as a canvas veteran it sure feels nice to use media with zero manufacturing defects, yeah baby! BC and Epson are both coming through nicely on the QC.
Have you tried Pura Smooth as well as Velvet? If so, how does it compare?
I often use Pura Smooth and have seen Elegance Velvet (which I never used due to the OBAs), but have never seen anything printed on Pura Velvet. I generally like Breathing Colour products because they combine great longevity with good Dmax and gamut and are physically sturdy compared to other papers of the same type.
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Have you tried Pura Smooth as well as Velvet? If so, how does it compare?
Pura Smooth and Pura Velvet are equivalent in terms of gamut and image appearance. Smooth is a little thinner, about 17 mils compared to more like 19 or 20 for Velvet. Pura Velvet is a bit more rigid, and near the limit for the suction available on my 8300. I actually prefer the more pliable base on the Epson "Press" papers which are easier to handle at all stages of production. But Pura looks nicer.
I don't use Pura Smooth simply because I don't like the way the flat surface looks when varnished. It shows up the inevitable minor ripples in the coating in an way that is not attractive to my eye. The inherent surface texture in Velvet forgives coating variations by casting them as part of the media's texture.
The surface of Velvet is better suited to a production environment. I don't have to be as relentlessly careful about removing dust and such when coating Velvet, and it's not as likely to show up minor scrapes and scratches.
Velvet looks more acceptable when presented without glass or plex. It sort of passes for canvas or at least it manages to look more tactile and organic than Smooth. IMHO quality of surface becomes a competitive issue when pieces of art displayed near other, and I don't want my pieces to look comparatively crass or mechanical in the kinds of venues where I usually display which often include paintings and other fine art prints. OTOH, if one wants to go in that direction, a hard edge look is probably achievable with Pura Smooth and very careful coating technique.
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Hi Bill
This is a question from a non expert and non professional hobbyst, not a critique, so please don't be offended
Why use a fine art matte paper if you are planning to coat it to gloss or semi-gloss after printing?
Wouldn't you have even more gamut available and deeper blacks using a base with some gloss already in it? Like Satin, Luster or Baryta paper?
Is there something to gain, that I am not seeing, by going in a round trip from matte back to gloss via coating?
Thanks
Hugo
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What's to gain is, the varnished prints are extremely resistant to wear and can even be gently washed. I can frame them without glass or plex which is a great advantage for sofa-sized pieces. And I can handle varnished prints in the rough way needed for glue mounting to Gator and other substrates. My observation has been that large pieces with glazing (aka glass or plex) do not sell anywhere near as well as those without glazing, and a lot of galleries tend to shy away from glazed pieces in the larger sizes because of in-gallery reflection issues.
FWIW, glossy media doesn't varnish well, or at least not with varnishes that offer industrial-strength, maid-with-Windex proof protection. The far more delicate "protective sprays" suitable for those media offer relatively little mechanical protection.
Matte papers actually gain quite a bit of gamut and d-max from spraying, with the price of a very slight loss in highlight brightness. In a sense, glossy media is just matte media with a glossy pre-coating.
It's not unusual to see coating almost double the gamut volume of matte paper. While not all of that increase is in useful areas, a lot of it is. For most images properly printed and varnished matte paper can compete with glossy media in color and contrast, while sometimes offering a more artful interpretation.
edit...I should be careful not to paint too rosy a picture of varnished matte paper. It's a bear to learn to do it right! And you have to do some trial and error work to develop the necessary profiles from varnished targets, which is also dependent on how well you have developed your coating technique. One can run around in circles for a while on that stuff.
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I believe Premier Art suggests using their glossy protective spray prior to using a matte finish on most all surfaces. May be a gamut thing with the glossy first, or too much dulling of a matte paper plus a matte overcoat without the glossy in the middle.
SG
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What's to gain is, the varnished prints are extremely resistant to wear and can even be gently washed. I can frame them without glass or plex which is a great advantage for sofa-sized pieces. And I can handle varnished prints in the rough way needed for glue mounting to Gator and other substrates. My observation has been that large pieces with glazing (aka glass or plex) do not sell anywhere near as well as those without glazing, and a lot of galleries tend to shy away from glazed pieces in the larger sizes because of in-gallery reflection issues.
FWIW, glossy media doesn't varnish well, or at least not with varnishes that offer industrial-strength, maid-with-Windex proof protection. The far more delicate "protective sprays" suitable for those media offer relatively little mechanical protection.
Matte papers actually gain quite a bit of gamut and d-max from spraying, with the price of a very slight loss in highlight brightness. In a sense, glossy media is just matte media with a glossy pre-coating.
It's not unusual to see coating almost double the gamut volume of matte paper. While not all of that increase is in useful areas, a lot of it is. For most images properly printed and varnished matte paper can compete with glossy media in color and contrast, while sometimes offering a more artful interpretation.
edit...I should be careful not to paint too rosy a picture of varnished matte paper. It's a bear to learn to do it right! And you have to do some trial and error work to develop the necessary profiles from varnished targets, which is also dependent on how well you have developed your coating technique. One can run around in circles for a while on that stuff.
I suspect spraying Timeless on paper may have another advantage, at least with Breathing Colour papers.
Inkjet coatings are inherently fragile and crack with heavy ink loads, as well as over time due to embrittlement in association with paper expansion and contraction. But spray-on acrylic coatings, such as Timeless, are designed to chemically bond with this layer, filling in cracks and pores and stabilising it to allow canvases to be stretched over a frame without cracking. In doing so, it doesn't so much form a 'bond' with the inkjet layer as it adds to, thickens and reinforces the layer. Essentially, the final product isn't really a sandwich of paper-inkjet layer-varnish, but a two-layer system consisting of a paper base with a thick layer of acrylic on top, with the inkjet layer becoming part of, rather than being separate from, the acrylic layer. Therefore, it bends with the layer, stretches with the layer (e.g. when stretching canvas) and is no longer susceptible to cracking, unless the whole layer cracks - which is far less likely, since its now a thick, tough layer of acrylic rather than a thin inkjet coating. Spray another coating of Timeless on the back of the paper and you've also effectively sealed the paper from the atmosphere, preventing curling and limiting interaction with pollutants and moisture in the atmosphere.
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Thanks for the clarification, Bill and Shadowblade
One more question.
But the time you finish your processing of a print on good matte fine art paper, after the thin coating with Timeless or good spray can coating.
I am assuming here that you use one or two very thin coats, correct me if I am wrong.
What does the finish surface looks like?
Still mostly matte with a hint of gloss?
Satin or pearl like kind of shine?
What version of timeless? Gloss, satin or matte?
What spray? I have tried the Clear Jet fine Art Low Gloss, on a couple of matte papers and I end up with an increase in depth and better blacks, no shine at all, still matte.
Is there a website where I can look at your work to maybe get an idea of the type of images you work on to figure out this coating business?
Thanks a lot for your help, its definitely priceless the amount of knowledge and good will in this forum.
Hugo
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Pura Velvet reaches a satin-going-on-glossy finish after 2 generous sprayed coats of usually pure Gloss Timeless slighty diluted with water. At the end of those 2 coats I have applied roughly 15 to 18 ml of undiluted Timeless per square foot of coated print, which is just beginning to look more gloss than satin. Epson Cold Press needs a third coat to be as glossy, it's either more absorbent or has some microporous action going on. That's in the ball park for obtaining the same amount of gloss on matte canvas.
4 or 5 coats reaches as close to a mirror like finish as you can get, but with a suggestion of low frequency orange-peel texture that keeps it from being called perfectly glossy. But quite stunning nevertheless, has much the same impact as a face mounted glossy and is a killer way to show inherently bright images. I bet Dan could get a lot smoother coat than I can.
You can reach a satin gloss with just a single pass of well-rolled Timeless, same slight dilution. I've gotten quite good at that for my 8x44 inch test strips, but would still need to practice for anything bigger. In my limited rolling experience I have noticed that subsequent rolled on layers tend to develop very obvious orange-peel texture, maybe my technique needs work. For now I would stick with spraying for building up more than one layer.
Have not experimented with matte coatings at all. While I like the look of uncoated matte prints, applied matte coatings have always seemed to me to degrade the image, which leaves glossy as my only option for a rich looking print.
The bottom line with the glossy coatings is that you can get a lot of variation based on how you apply the coatings. Wet coatings favor high gloss, sparse coatings favor a more matte-like effect, and there are countless possibilities in-between.
You can learn absolutely nothing about how coatings look from images on the internet. Make a list of all the nearby photo galleries and exhibitions, and see how many you can visit this weekend.
Make a lot of the same print, at several different densities, and start coating. Truly useful knowledge relating to print making is not available on the cheap. I figure it might be possible to become fairly proficient at in a couple days by coating maybe 50+ pieces. If I was giving a class, I would assign at least 100 prints at 13 x 19 just for coating practice. Random attempts are relatively futile, one needs systematic doggedness to actually learn anything.
And if Epson ever has a booth at a trade show near you, be sure to go if only to see their absolutely amazing exhibition of every one of their papers, superbly printed with an image appropriate to the media and nicely framed without glass. You'll learn a lot from that, as I did.
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Thanks Bill
That's exactly the kind of description of process about arriving to achieving a look that I was looking for.
Have you tried face mounting after the various coatings?
Do you notice the heat of the press degrade or change the look of the finished print?
Hugo
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Bill,
Is there no shift at all to a yellow/warmer white in the paper when you apply the varnish? With most papers I find that the main problem.
Shadowwblade,
About creating a better bond of the inkjet coating to the paper base by applying a varnish. I think that only a very diluted first coat of varnish that is totally absorbed by the paper achieves that goal. The coatings Bill applies more likely stay on the surface and have a bond to the paper coating only. For canvas I spray a 1:1 diluted gloss varnish first to create a better bond. Followed by one or two gloss coats and a thin satin coat. But I use other coatings and media so can not be sure what the differences are.
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Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
January 2014, 600+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
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Bill,
Is there no shift at all to a yellow/warmer white in the paper when you apply the varnish? With most papers I find that the main problem.
Shadowwblade,
About creating a better bond of the inkjet coating to the paper base by applying a varnish. I think that only a very diluted first coat of varnish that is totally absorbed by the paper achieves that goal. The coatings Bill applies more likely stay on the surface and have a bond to the paper coating only. For canvas I spray a 1:1 diluted gloss varnish first to create a better bond. Followed by one or two gloss coats and a thin satin coat. But I use other coatings and media so can not be sure what the differences are.
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Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
January 2014, 600+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
That's not what I was getting at.
What I'm getting at is that the acrylic spray isn't merely an overlaminate applied onto the inkjet coating, like the inkjet coating is a laminate applied to the paper. Rather, acrylic sprays form hydrogen bonds with the polyvinyl alcohol chains that make up the bulk of the inkjet coating, as well as the resin coating of the encapsulated pigment particles. Essentially, the coating, ink and spray can be treated as a single mass of material - a single layer - rather than two separate layers each laminated on top of the other. And the inkjet/spray layer is far stronger and far less susceptible to cracking than the ink-loaded inkjet layer alone.
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Alright. So I aim at an extra property of that varnish coating, not only bonding inkjet coating+(encapsulated) pigment particles+the varnish layer but also the paper base top in that sandwich.
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Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
January 2014, 600+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
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Alright. So I aim at an extra property of that varnish coating, not only bonding inkjet coating+(encapsulated) pigment particles+the varnish layer but also the paper base top in that sandwich.
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Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
January 2014, 600+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
Not sure how you'd do that, unless part of the inkjet layer was already soaked into the face of the paper in the first place.
I've been wondering what sort of result you'd get if the inkjet layer was applied not as a coating on a paper base, but as a coating on top of a nice, thick layer of polyvinyl alcohol sheet, impregnated with baryta particles for a white base.
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^Timeless creates a small amount of yellowing, Polycrylic much less. IMHO either of those varnishes is far less compromising to image presentation than glazing over an unvarnished print.
It's difficult not to get considerable paint absorption deep into Pura and the Epson "Press" papers which can feel like wet towels all the way through when too much paint is applied. That is different than my experience with say Rag Photographique which seems to resist deep absorption, perhaps because of the microporous coatings and/or the much denser substrate.
Provided the paint is not going tacky in the air from very bad spraying technique, Prua and the Press papers will go completely limp and feel moist on the back with even moderate painting, within less than a minute. If the back is moist feeling, and the surface after the first coat looks "matte" rather than "powdered" then deep absorption is indicated. I do an ad hoc test on every print I make during production, when I first apply and then remove masking tape along the edges during the mounting process. In the rare case when the tape comes off with some of the print, the tear occurs deep in the paper, rather than on the surface.
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Bill,
That sounds good. If the varnish polymer penetrates accordingly then it should add to the total bond.
For papers that have a barrier between the inkjet coating and the paper base it will not work like that. Barriers like that do not have to be like the polyethylene film in RC papers. Rag Photographique could have that.
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Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
January 2014, 600+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
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What's to gain is, the varnished prints are extremely resistant to wear and can even be gently washed.
I can put a Epson K3 VM print on fine art paper under a hot water tap for several minutes without any harmful effect on the print, as long as the print has cured for a few days.
Brian A
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^Timeless creates a small amount of yellowing, Polycrylic much less. IMHO either of those varnishes is far less compromising to image presentation than glazing over an unvarnished print.
Isn't Timeless supposed to be non-yellowing over time? Or are you referring to the initial slight yellowness after coating, which doesn't change over time and can be accounted for with a profile?
I thought Polycrylic was a non-archival acrylic coating meant to be applied to wood...
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I believe the main difference between "for wood" acrylic coatings like Polycrylic and "for canvas" coatings like Timeless is that the canvas coatings are made with longer polymers, which has some advantage when it's time stretch. Or maybe it's shorter polymers...hmm. Anyway, don't use Polycrylic when you have to stretch.
I don't worry a whole lot about minor yellowing over time, or about jumping through hoops trying to make fancy profiles and other types of gyrations to correct minutiae. I do care about are large scale issues such as how the print presents itself, which for me includes framing, placement, in-situ lighting, etc. I prefer not to just toss the print into the wild once it's made. And I care that it will last a reasonable amount of time, for which I try to apply framing techniques not so much of the "archival" school but of the "long lasting" school. So far in the field, my oldest "long lasting" pieces are doing far better than my same-aged "archival" pieces. By a lot.
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Fair enough. So, for paper (which is flexible, as well as dimensionally variable with humidity), wouldn't you want to go with the Timeless rather than Polycrylic, so that it can move with the paper as it expands, contracts and flexes, rather than staying rigid?
Timeless being very slightly yellow when applied to paper isn't a problem - a simple profile can fix that. It's yellowing over time that you can't profile for - I thought Timeless was supposed to not yellow over time.
I guess another advantage of the Timeless is that it makes it safe to ship the paper rolled (something I wouldn't do with a print on coated paper sprayed with Hahnemuhle Protective Spray, for instance).
So, you've noticed that Timeless seems to penetrate deep into the paper base, through the inkjet receptive layer? Sounds like a good sign, then - if the spray laminate, inkjet layer, image and part of the paper base all all basically embedded in a single, thick layer of Timeless, then delamination and cracking should be next-to-impossible. Is this with undiluted Timeless, or do you have to thin it with water?
How does it dry? Does it dry like inks, soaking in through the paper to the other side, or does it dry by evaporation from the sprayed surface? If it's the latter (meaning that carrier chemicals won't get trapped in the paper, between the two layers of Timeless), have you thought about spraying the reverse side as well, to prevent curling and to seal the back of the print from humidity and atmospheric pollutants?
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I believe the main difference between "for wood" acrylic coatings like Polycrylic and "for canvas" coatings like Timeless is that the canvas coatings are made with longer polymers, which has some advantage when it's time stretch. Or maybe it's shorter polymers...hmm. Anyway, don't use Polycrylic when you have to stretch.
I don't worry a whole lot about minor yellowing over time, or about jumping through hoops trying to make fancy profiles and other types of gyrations to correct minutiae. I do care about are large scale issues such as how the print presents itself, which for me includes framing, placement, in-situ lighting, etc. I prefer not to just toss the print into the wild once it's made. And I care that it will last a reasonable amount of time, for which I try to apply framing techniques not so much of the "archival" school but of the "long lasting" school. So far in the field, my oldest "long lasting" pieces are doing far better than my same-aged "archival" pieces. By a lot.
It is the initial yellowing I did not like with other papers and varnishes when I tried similar protection methods in the past. Could be that the UV inhibitor in the Timeless adds a bit to the initial yellowing but if you think it is acceptable I trust you on your words. Acrylics and aliphatic polyurethanes do not yellow much in time, good paper bases can stand the time too and barriers like acrylic varnishes suppress oxygen/ozone attack too on the paper and the inks. I have to go through my paper samples to find papers with an effect Pura Velvet has, no sample of that in my collection and I doubt it is easy to get in Europe, UK being the easiest I see. Does it resemble the Epson Cold Press Natural in surface texture and whiteness but the backside is rougher?
Next to molecule weight, hydrolysis etc of the varnish polymer the way a dispersion is made could have an influence on the penetration. There is no need to find out if you write that Gloss Timeless does the job but I have to get it in the UK like the Pura.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
January 2014, 600+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
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Better that it starts off a bit yellow and doesn't change with time than a coating that starts off completely neutral, but yellows with time. You can compensate for the former, but not the latter.
I'd be interested in seeing a cross-sectional micrograph of a print sprayed in this manner, to see if the spray actually penetrates the inkjet layer and encases the image and part of the paper base in a thick layer of acrylic. The images on websites such as Graphics Atlas only show unsprayed prints.
Re: gloss vs matte - if matte tends to obscure the image, have you tried lustre? or a mixture of matte and gloss? Obviously, this is more applicable to photos to be framed behind glass - you want the durability of the coating, but you also don't want any extra reflections.
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Since the application of Timeless or Plycrylic covers and protect the front surface of the print.
Does it make sense to use either one of them also on the back, as an adhesive and a protectant at the same time, to mount the print or a sheet of canvas, on a backing board?
Could it be a preferable method to using dry mounting tissue?
Hugo
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Since the application of Timeless or Plycrylic covers and protect the front surface of the print.
Does it make sense to use either one of them also on the back, as an adhesive and a protectant at the same time, to mount the print or a sheet of canvas, on a backing board?
Could it be a preferable method to using dry mounting tissue?
Hugo
I'd like to know this too - not for use as glue, but to seal the back of the print from humidity and atmospheric pollutants.
It certainly works as a glue and is safe to use on a print, but I'd be hesitant to use it on both sides of a print without knowing how it dries and whether any solvent/carrier fluid it contains evaporates through the drying layer of Timeless or whether the solvents soak into the paper and are trapped there (due to layers of Timeless on each side). Trapping solvents inside the paper can't be good for its longevity...
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I remember reading in their website that Breathing Color describes Glamour II as being perfectly ok to be used as adhesive for mounting prints.
I imagine Timeles its a similar formula and would share that capability as well, just my guess.
I am doing a test now coating a few versions of the same print on the new Epson Watercolor Textured, to chose what coating I like best, as soon as I find the one I like better I will try to find out if the coating can be used in the back as an adhesive or a sealer.
Hugo
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I remember reading in their website that Breathing Color describes Glamour II as being perfectly ok to be used as adhesive for mounting prints.
I imagine Timeles its a similar formula and would share that capability as well, just my guess.
I am doing a test now coating a few versions of the same print on the new Epson Watercolor Textured, to chose what coating I like best, as soon as I find the one I like better I will try to find out if the coating can be used in the back as an adhesive or a sealer.
Hugo
How did the test go? Did you also find that Timeless soaks through the receptive layer and deep into the paper base, or did it just stay on the surface?
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I end up tearing the edges and dry mounting to a bard, held perfectly flat and look great.
As coating I had the best visual result, keeping the velvet surface of the paper, using a spray from Clear-Jet, is a solvent based. the name is AFA Fine Art Low Gloss. The surface still very fragile, I just ruined one by barely touching it with the edge of a board. May be enough for UV protection but is definitely not enough for protection against abrasion.
I will try something more substantial like Timeless later, my idea is to show it without glass
I keep reporting as I test
Hugo
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I end up tearing the edges and dry mounting to a bard, held perfectly flat and look great.
As coating I had the best visual result, keeping the velvet surface of the paper, using a spray from Clear-Jet, is a solvent based. the name is AFA Fine Art Low Gloss. The surface still very fragile, I just ruined one by barely touching it with the edge of a board. May be enough for UV protection but is definitely not enough for protection against abrasion.
I will try something more substantial like Timeless later, my idea is to show it without glass
I keep reporting as I test
Hugo
I'm guessing the spray you used is similar to Hahnemuhle Protective Spray, which applies an ultra-thin acrylic layer to the surface as a barrier against atmospheric pollutants. These don't really provide any physical protection, merely UV and chemical protection. But, then again, papers sprayed using these are designed to be displayed under glass.
I'd be very interested to see if the Timeless really soaks through and encapsulates the image (as well as the upper layers of the paper base) or if it merely sits on the surface. If it turns out to be the former, encasing the image layer and some of the paper in a thick layer of acrylic, it should stabilise the image against delamination and make for an extremely-durable image that will last as long as the pigments last, rather than being potentially lost due to the image layer peeling or cracking despite the pigments not having faded.
Incidentally, Timeless seems to work as an adhesive, but nowhere near as well as Glamour II. This is because Glamour II is normally mixed with water (but is left undiluted when used as an adhesive), while Timeless comes pre-mixed. There's nothing stopping you from using Glamour II as an adhesive and Timeless as the surface coating, though.
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Pura Velvet reaches a satin-going-on-glossy finish after 2 generous sprayed coats of usually pure Gloss Timeless slighty diluted with water. At the end of those 2 coats I have applied roughly 15 to 18 ml of undiluted Timeless per square foot of coated print, which is just beginning to look more gloss than satin. Epson Cold Press needs a third coat to be as glossy, it's either more absorbent or has some microporous action going on. That's in the ball park for obtaining the same amount of gloss on matte canvas.
4 or 5 coats reaches as close to a mirror like finish as you can get, but with a suggestion of low frequency orange-peel texture that keeps it from being called perfectly glossy. But quite stunning nevertheless, has much the same impact as a face mounted glossy and is a killer way to show inherently bright images. I bet Dan could get a lot smoother coat than I can.
You can reach a satin gloss with just a single pass of well-rolled Timeless, same slight dilution. I've gotten quite good at that for my 8x44 inch test strips, but would still need to practice for anything bigger. In my limited rolling experience I have noticed that subsequent rolled on layers tend to develop very obvious orange-peel texture, maybe my technique needs work. For now I would stick with spraying for building up more than one layer.
Have not experimented with matte coatings at all. While I like the look of uncoated matte prints, applied matte coatings have always seemed to me to degrade the image, which leaves glossy as my only option for a rich looking print.
The bottom line with the glossy coatings is that you can get a lot of variation based on how you apply the coatings. Wet coatings favor high gloss, sparse coatings favor a more matte-like effect, and there are countless possibilities in-between.
You can learn absolutely nothing about how coatings look from images on the internet. Make a list of all the nearby photo galleries and exhibitions, and see how many you can visit this weekend.
Make a lot of the same print, at several different densities, and start coating. Truly useful knowledge relating to print making is not available on the cheap. I figure it might be possible to become fairly proficient at in a couple days by coating maybe 50+ pieces. If I was giving a class, I would assign at least 100 prints at 13 x 19 just for coating practice. Random attempts are relatively futile, one needs systematic doggedness to actually learn anything.
And if Epson ever has a booth at a trade show near you, be sure to go if only to see their absolutely amazing exhibition of every one of their papers, superbly printed with an image appropriate to the media and nicely framed without glass. You'll learn a lot from that, as I did.
Out of interest, why do you dilute it with water, and how much water do you add? Timeless comes pre-diluted, unlike Glamour II. Does the water help it soak through the inkjet layer into the base, or does it make for a smoother surface? What does it do to the drying time?
By 'generous' coating, do you mean spraying horizontally and then vertically, prior to allowing it to dry, as a single 'coat', or would you consider that to be two coats?
Also, do you know whether Timeless Matte or Lustre would soak through in the same way as Gloss?