How do you touch up tiny flaws in inkjet prints?

[solardarkroom.com]

I'm looking for suggestions on how to fix very small flaws on otherwise decent prints. I've been making 13x19 inkjet prints on Ilford GFS that will be framed and on display/for sale so I'm not prepared to accept any little flaws. I had an otherwise acceptable print marred by a tiny spec the other day and just did a re-print. In the future I'd like to be able to do a spot-touchup. I've not thought about this since going digital. Is there a touchup kit folks are using these days with inkjets or are you all just doing those reprints and trying to keep your printers clean?

[jgbowerman]

I have seen one master landscape photographer save spent cartridges for residual ink and mix pigments as needed to do minor touchups on large prints (he was working on a 40x60 at the time). He tells me the results are not always successful and will discard the failures, but he also has some success. His biggest problem has been with the watercolor type papers having a tendency to flake off, leaving tiny white spots of bare paper on occasion. To reduce this occurrence, with all papers, he advised gently brushing the surface prior to loading. Using roll paper, one uses the feeder button to feed out the necessary length, brushing as the paper is fed out as well as back in.

[solardarkroom.com]

Thank you for your advice. From what I've been reading thus far it seems an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I've ordered a large draftman's brush and will be getting a printer cover as well.

By the way, I had a look at your images: Great Work! Ya gotta love living in CA.

[ghaynes754]

Try Derwent Inktense drawing pencils.   I find they work well with canvas and watercolor papers.

[neile]

This is actually something I really miss from the darkroom days (and I never thought I'd say that). Spotting darkroom prints is common practice, and you could buy 0000 brushes and special spotting inks to fix all the little flaws. I really wish someone would make something similar for inkjet prints, it would save me a ton of hassle sometimes

Neil

[cybis]

I've no experience with this but in Ansel Adams's book 'The Print', there are five pages on spotting and etching traditional photographs. Amongst other advices, he recommends using a "good quality brush like the Windsor and Newton Series 7 finest read sable brush - usually a No. 0 or No. 00". I have no idea if it applies to inkjet prints.

http://www.winsornewton.com/products.aspx?PageID=325

[Geoff Wittig]

99 times out of 100, the problem is flaking, wherein a tiny speck of a paper's inkjet coating pops off the page after printing, leaving a glaringly obvious white spot. This is most obvious in dark areas of the print, of course. As others note, brushing off the paper before printing helps a great deal.

In my humble experience these defects are generally tiny, and can be rendered invisible by touching them up with an appropriately colored speck of ink. I have a couple of pigment ink pens I've used for this. If it's a print I'm selling, I'll bite the bullet and reprint it unless the defect can be eliminated with a single touch of a pen. If it's a print for my own use, I'll happily mix up a tiny dab of acrylic paint in a matching color and paint it out.

[na goodman]

Here are a few other suggestions from a prior discussion on the subject.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=44947

[robgo2]

Thank you for your advice. From what I've been reading thus far it seems an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I've ordered a large draftman's brush and will be getting a printer cover as well

I would advise against brushing Gold Fibre Silk, as the surface is so fragile that it may be scratched by even the softest bristles.  At the very least, do a test before making a large print.

Rob

[neile]

I've no experience with this but in Ansel Adams's book 'The Print', there are five pages on spotting and etching traditional photographs. Amongst other advices, he recommends using a "good quality brush like the Windsor and Newton Series 7 finest read sable brush - usually a No. 0 or No. 00". I have no idea if it applies to inkjet prints.

That's the spotting technique I mentioned earlier, although a 0 or 00 brush wasn't fine enough when I was doing it. You do it in conjunction with spotting ink.

Looking at the other thread that was posted, I like the idea of using an art pen. I'm going to have to try that!

Neil

[jgbowerman]

Thank you for your advice. From what I've been reading thus far it seems an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I've ordered a large draftman's brush and will be getting a printer cover as well.

By the way, I had a look at your images: Great Work! Ya gotta love living in CA.

Thank you, solardarkroom

CA is a great place to live. The Sierra is my spiritual theatre, I can hardly do justice with a camera, but I'm working on it. I enjoyed your website, too. You have an uninhibited style... something that invites creativity. I like that.

And thanks for the thought-provoking thread on touchups, it is an interesting subject. We get too caught up in aiming for perfection at times when no one else will likely see the difference, or so I keep asking myself when about to discard another "flawed" print.

Cheers,

Greg

[Jim Cole]

If the spot (usually white) is in a darker area of the print, I find that I can easily touch it with a medium gray or black artist pen and have it virtually disappear. If the spot is in the sky, then I print a small, 1cm sq of that part of the print onto a sheet of plastic overlay and quickly, while the ink is still wet, apply a small touch with a fine brush to the print. I have about a 30% success rate, even though the ink mix is from the same part of the print. The other 70% are reprints.

[Ernst Dinkla]

That's the spotting technique I mentioned earlier, although a 0 or 00 brush wasn't fine enough when I was doing it. You do it in conjunction with spotting ink.

Looking at the other thread that was posted, I like the idea of using an art pen. I'm going to have to try that!

Neil

Good quality watercolor pencils with a sharp tip + a sponge to wet them. For black and greys I use drawing pens filled with leftover Vivera inkjet ink. The Staedtler-Marsmatic 700 preferably, below 0.18mm tip.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

spectral plots of +100 inkjet papers:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm

[howseth]

Brush or blow compressed air on paper before you print. Save spent ink cartridges - and use the closest color to touch up those white spots with a tiny brush (dilute color with water first - and pre- test on a scrap of the same paper.)

Howard