As I prepare big exhibition for my students and make a lot of prints, sometime there are prints that do not have enough quality so that work have to be reprinted, for example it is to dark, or do not have enough contrast etc.
Therefore I have some prints to play with them; I use Matte Litho for matt prints (which is by the way my favorite paper) and Professional Satin Photo for gloss prints.
So I decide to test various varnishes on the pictures, I know that HP do not recommend that but I tried it anyway.
Here in Croatia the only product I found for inkjet is Clearshield, I also tried various products for paintings - they do not work. They do not physically destroy picture but make it muddy and dull, and it is difficult to apply those products - you can always see some marks from roller or brush - I cannot do spraying.
Clearshield on the other hand is easy to roll, I have gloss version. It is really glossy, Professional Satin Photo surface become highly reflective but... Although before applying coat picture looks perfect - coating shows pizza wheels mark all over the picture - picture become useless. Coatings give me more saturated colors, deeper blacks, bring out the contrast, bring out the details in shadow area - all the things coating should do, and that is the main reason why painters apply them for centuries, but also show all the defects picture can have - like damaged surface ruined by pizza wheels. That is something that is invisible without the coating.
Matte Litho do not react very god to any kind of coating, which is pity because its surface is very delicate and so easy to scratch, even rubbing papers on each other left the marks if you have clean black surfaces. After coating with Clearshield paper curls and it always feel and looks like it is slightly wet.
So not very helpful information but it may be interesting to someone.
Damir
