Print touch ups

[Justan]

I just did a 24" x 60" pano on canvas and there is a tiny piece that flaked off in the middle of the otherwise flawless blue sky. Arg!

Every now and then for a variety of reasons there is a hiccup when printing. What does everyone use to do touch ups on prints?

[Garnick]

When I have an "empty" cart I tear it apart and retrieve whatever ink is left. That ink is stored in "film cassettes", remember them?. Also some small glass jars are great for this purpose, but try to get the ones with plastic lids, not metal. When you have a BOO BOO on a print simply use a small spotting brush and go at it. Use a piece of scrap inkjet paper to test the density of the ink and thin it out to suit by wiping off excess ink. This procedure will usually salvage a print, but of course you have to practice a bit to get the correct feel for it.

Gary   

[neile]

We've had numerous prior threads with suggestions on this. Searching for "spotting" using the forum search feature returned these relevant conversations:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=41983.0
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=20535.0
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=45628.0

Neil

[Justan]

Thanks for the replies. I didn’t think of searching for ‘spotting.’

I like the idea of scavenging from the empty carts as the inks therein supply *everything* that’s needed, including the longevity and fade resistance issues. Unfortunately my spent carts are long gone, but I will henceforth keep them and also buy new multi ought brushes for just this purpose.

One of the other threads referenced mentioned Faber Castel PITT artist pen sets. I found a nice 48 pen collection. It will do until I acquire a set of Vivera carts.

[enduser]

Just re-print the damaged part of the image on a fairly non-porous medium, then you have a little amount of pooled color to use with a small brush, that will be the exact match for the missing bit.

[Farmer]

Using a brush to pick up pooled ink isn't really going to give you an exact match because that's not how inkjet printers work - it's not like an artist's pallette where the colours are physically mixed - it's a combination of colours, dot placement and dot sizes that give a certain colour result (and the current technology takes into account how those dots are placed compared to others so as the effect on each is controlled).

[Ernst Dinkla]

Using a brush to pick up pooled ink isn't really going to give you an exact match because that's not how inkjet printers work - it's not like an artist's pallette where the colours are physically mixed - it's a combination of colours, dot placement and dot sizes that give a certain colour result (and the current technology takes into account how those dots are placed compared to others so as the effect on each is controlled).

My usual reply too. I had a suspicion that it would not work and tried it out, it did not work for me. Yet every time I see that advice reappear. My preference is too use thin refillable drawing pens (Marmatic 700) with the Lk, LLK, inkjet inks for any grey + black touch up and high quality watercolor pencils for color touch up on matte papers, sharp point + a wet sponge as the conditions.

met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst

New: Spectral plots of +250 inkjet papers:

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm

[enduser]

Well we've used the method we mentioned successfully several times.  Must have been just lucky I guess.