Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: deanwork on November 24, 2019, 10:47:08 am
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I have a longevity question about these two Canson papers.
I’ve been using Platine for a long time. I like everything about it including no oba content, 100 cotton, good white point, gamut, dmax, and it is easier to flatten off a roll and never curls to the point of causing head strikes in any of my printers.
This week I’ve been doing some prints on the Canson Infinity Baryta again ( not Prestige ) and am really liking the look of it especially the gamut, texture, and sharpness. I never used it much because I was afraid of curling and head strikes in roll form.
I looked on Wilhelms site this am and see he has rated the Baryta longevity a little better than Platine with all the inks.
He also labels this paper as oba free, which is totally wrong. I just put it under my black light and it glows super brightly, and as brightly as any of the oba saturated rc media I have around here.
So where do these fade figures come from? Is he ignoring clear obvious oba burnout again? Hell I don’t know whether to use this paper or not. It sure looks great.
I haven’t tried the Baryta Prestige yet. It seems like it will be too thick for a lot of roll printing if you are to keep it from curling, but it is half cotton. But maybe I should try it for sheets. I assume it has oba also.
I put the Hahnemuhle Photorag Metallic under the black light and it doesn’t seem to have any oba.
John
http://www.wilhelm-research.com/Canson/WIR_Canson_Fine_Art_and_Photo_Papers_2019-10-20.pdf
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Not sure about Canson Infinity Baryta. I use Canson Baryta Photographique. OBA content is rated at "very low". It is the closest to air dried fiber based glossy silver gelatin I have found.
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Not sure about Canson Infinity Baryta. I use Canson Baryta Photographique. OBA content is rated at "very low". It is the closest to air dried fiber based glossy silver gelatin I have found.
If you look at Ernst Dinkla's spectral plots the Baryta Photogrphique shows a very small bump where one expects to see OBA effects. I could not find a plot for the Infinity Baryta, but the black light test that John did is reliable in identifying large amounts of OBA.
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I bought a black light because I kept getting different answers about OBA content depending on who I asked within the same company. But testing with a black light leaves no question. I also discovered that some papers that claim "no OBA" actually put a LOT in the paper base even if there isn't any in the inkjet coating itself, which is not something the paper company will tell you about.
Checking BC's Lyve canvas was where I first discovered this phenomenon. There may be no OBAs in the coating but there's a ton of it in the canvas (though I'm not sure how much this affects it's archivability).
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Yea the paper I’ve been testing is the Canson Baryta Photographique. The one that’s been around a long time.
It’s a great looking paper but it glows super brightly under my black light. That’s disconcerting when people are selling through major galleries...
Just tested Photorag 308 matte rag and it only has a slight glow, not bright. And Epson Hot Press glows brightly like the Canson Baryta.
I’m going to order some of that very thick Prestige .
What is the best smooth fiber gloss Hahnemuhle that I should test?
I have printed on and like the Photorag Pearl and it’s oba brother Fine Art Pearl both of which I like.
Haven’t tested all the new Hahnemuehle fiber gloss.
John
If you look at Ernst Dinkla's spectral plots the Baryta Photogrphique shows a very small bump where one expects to see OBA effects. I could not find a plot for the Infinity Baryta, but the black light test that John did is reliable in identifying large amounts of OBA.
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Well I’ll be damn. Just looked at the Lyve canvas and it indeed does have some oba, it has a slight glow like Photorag 308. So they lied.
I tested Platine and Rag Photographique again just now and there is NO glow at all, so no oba .
The Canson Pro Satin that I use glows like crazy super bright. That’s the same one Wilhelm has rated at over 400 years behind uv glass with Vivera inks.... his bad.
John
I bought a black light because I kept getting different answers about OBA content depending on who I asked within the same company. But testing with a black light leaves no question. I also discovered that some papers that claim "no OBA" actually put a LOT in the paper base even if there isn't any in the inkjet coating itself, which is not something the paper company will tell you about.
Checking BC's Lyve canvas was where I first discovered this phenomenon. There may be no OBAs in the coating but there's a ton of it in the canvas (though I'm not sure how much this affects it's archivability).
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...I looked on Wilhelms site this am and see he has rated the Baryta longevity a little better than Platine with all the inks.
He also labels this paper as oba free, which is totally wrong. I just put it under my black light and it glows super brightly, and as brightly as any of the oba saturated rc media I have around here.
So where do these fade figures come from? Is he ignoring clear obvious oba burnout again? Hell I don’t know whether to use this paper or not. It sure looks great.
I haven’t tried the Baryta Prestige yet. It seems like it will be too thick for a lot of roll printing if you are to keep it from curling, but it is half cotton. But maybe I should try it for sheets. I assume it has oba also.
I put the Hahnemuhle Photorag Metallic under the black light and it doesn’t seem to have any oba.
John
http://www.wilhelm-research.com/Canson/WIR_Canson_Fine_Art_and_Photo_Papers_2019-10-20.pdf
There's a whole category of so-called "Baryta" papers, and IGFS,CIBP, Innova Exhibition Baryta, Canson Baryta Prestige, Hahnemühle Photo Silk Baryta, Epson Legacy Baryta, and numerous others that fall into this category. They do have OBAs in the subbing layers albeit in relatively low amounts, plus a pinch or two of Barium Sulfate so they can be called baryta, but they also have TiO2 whitening pigments. Hence, they suffer from light induced low intensity staining (LILIS). I picked the problem up in earlier tests I've run at Aardenburg, but for our upcoming 2020 inks and media project I'm going to run a group of these non RC "traditional" Barytas using the new Aardenburg extended testing protocol which now tracks the long term dark storage and LILIS effects as well. I'm certain these "baryta" papers are going to show the LILIS issue, I just don't know if it will be as severe as what we see for RC photo papers like Epson Premium Luster or Canon Pro Luster.
As for the WIR testing methodology, WIR allows a fairly liberal whitepoint discoloration value (a holdover from the color chromogenic era where paper yellowing was pretty bad in the early days), so inkjet media rarely trigger on that criterion even when they are loaded with high OBA content. In the WIR 3.0 densitometric test, it's the pure yellow patch which tends to determine the rating for many pigmented ink sets. Hence, if one studies the WIR ratings more broadly, one can see that papers containing OBAs tend to get higher scores than OBA-free papers. Why? Because the paper yellowing doesn't trigger the whitepoint endpoint, but rather this increase in yellowing tends to offset the loss of yellow density in the WIR pure yellow test patch. Hence, the yellow patch performance gets propped up somewhat compared to how that ink performs on OBA-free media. Thus, despite considerable caveats in the WIR addenda warning about the use of OBAs, the WIR test results themselves tend to suggest just the opposite. Essentially It's an artifact of the WIR densitometric testing method. The real truth is that OBAs lower print permanence. They never increase it! The I* metric based on CIELAB colorimetry proportions the media yellowing properties correctly into the Aardenburg Conservation Display ratings. We just have to look for the yellowing when and where it occurs. That's the reason for the recent R&D I did to incorporate an extended light fade/dark storage testing procedure into our new extended testing protocol which will be used at Aardenburg from now on for all media containing OBAs.
cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
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As usual Mark is the scientist who considers all the factors of image permanence simultaneously.
Really this flaw in Wilhelm’s methodology goes way back to his published data 18 years ago when he gave the Epson Archival Matte, which was a junk paper soaked with cheap obas in the coating, a 100 year rating.
We saw those prints turning gray in our studios in a years time exposed to small amounts of daylight.
....for the benefit of people who weren’t around back then........it’s not just the paper edges that are effected, it’s All of the light values in the print.
And it’s still going on, this confusing of our clients in ignoring the dye brightener issue. And as Mark just described there is another factor to think about, titanium white that may cause low light staining in many of these “Baryta” papers we like the qualities of. Always something to worry about.
Anyway despite what Wilhelm is posting, It seems to me that Platine seems the safest fiber gloss media that is not completely free of any kind of brighteners. I like the oba free Photorag Pearl a lot, but it’s not exactly the most desired choice for imagery that is high in color saturation. And for that reason many people will reject it, as I keep trying to talk them into using it.
John
Hence, the yellow patch performance gets propped up somewhat compared to how that ink performs on OBA-free media. Thus, despite considerable caveats in the WIR addenda warning about the use of OBAs, the WIR test results themselves tend to suggest just the opposite. Essentially It's an artifact of the WIR densitometric testing method. Truth is that OBAs lower print permanence. They never increase it!
cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
[/quote]
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You might also want to check Innova Art's ifa-45. It's my favorite of all the "Platine" type of papers. It has a slightly mottled surface to cut reflections and resist fingerprints.
https://www.innovaart.com/product/exhibition-cotton-gloss-335gsm/
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Well I’ll be damn. Just looked at the Lyve canvas and it indeed does have some oba, it has a slight glow like Photorag 308. So they lied.
John
Yep. What a shock, a company that lies about its product. ;) To quote Reagan "Trust but verify."
That's why I use this instead of Lyve:
https://www.canson-infinity.com/en/products/museum-pro-canvas
It also has the smoothest canvas surface I've ever tested (and I've tested a lot).
BTW, BC's latest OBA free paper River Stone Satin Rag 350 has TiO2.
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I’m not shocked that they lied. I’m shocked that I never even looked at it under my black light.
However it’s a very nice canvas and all the other ones I’ve used
have a lot more oba than that and not nearly as good of a gamut. But I haven’t tried Canson canvas....
John
Yep. What a shock, a company that lies about its product. ;)
To quote Reagan "Trust but verify." BTW, BC's latest OBA free paper River Stone Satin Rag 350 has TiO2.
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I’m not shocked that they lied. I’m shocked that I never even looked at it under my black light.
However it’s a very nice canvas and all the other ones I’ve used
have a lot more oba than that and not nearly as good of a gamut. But I haven’t tried Canson canvas....
John
The luster version of the Canson Museum Pro is the"prettiest" canvas I've seen and it lacks the horrid speckled reflections of BC's (and others) gloss canvases. Looks very close to a high quality semigloss paper.
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I’ve been happy with Lyve and satin timeless varnish for a long time, but sounds like I should check this out. Thanks,
John
The luster version of the Canson Museum Pro is the"prettiest" canvas I've seen and it lacks the horrid speckled reflections of BC's (and others) gloss canvases. Looks very close to a high quality semigloss paper.
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the thing that bugs me the most is the TiO2 issue. There are easy ways to detect OBAs but if a paper manufacturer has TiO2 in the coating, there's not an easy way to check for this other than to look for problems down the line. While paper manufacturers do advertise the use of barium sulfate in coating, they certainly do not mention TiO2. There is a group of Dutch researchers who have developed what looks like a simple test for TiO2 but it's focused more on the presence in paint pigments: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026265X15003288 Maybe one of our Dutch members can contact them to see if this can be extrapolated to ink jet papers.
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Anyway despite what Wilhelm is posting, It seems to me that Platine seems the safest fiber gloss media that is not completely free of any kind of brighteners. I like the oba free Photorag Pearl a lot, but it’s not exactly the most desired choice for imagery that is high in color saturation. And for that reason many people will reject it, as I keep trying to talk them into using it.
John
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
The language here is a little bit confusing... Does this mean to say that Canson Platine does not include any OBA? I'm referring to "not completely free of any kind of brighteners" line :)
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the thing that bugs me the most is the TiO2 issue. There are easy ways to detect OBAs but if a paper manufacturer has TiO2 in the coating, there's not an easy way to check for this other than to look for problems down the line. While paper manufacturers do advertise the use of barium sulfate in coating, they certainly do not mention TiO2. There is a group of Dutch researchers who have developed what looks like a simple test for TiO2 but it's focused more on the presence in paint pigments: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026265X15003288 Maybe one of our Dutch members can contact them to see if this can be extrapolated to ink jet papers.
Yes, the spectral curves like Ernst generously makes available to us are hard to decipher when both TiO2 and OBAs are present because both OBAs and TiO2 alone will cause a distinct downturn in the spectral reflectance starting at around 400nm. I had to use a portable X-ray Flourescence (XRF) unit at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center to determine that both IGFS and Canson Baryta Photographique contained TiO2 as well as Baryta. Not something an enduser can routinely do! However, I knew these two papers showed clear signs of LILIS in my early tests of them, and my hypothesis was that LILIS happens in papers with both OBA and TiO2 (which means essentially all RC photo papers). The confirmation of both OBAs and TiO2 in these two papers is therefore totally consistent with my hypothesis that there's a TiO2/faded OBA chemical interaction which develops more yellowing in low light or dark storage conditions over time than can be explained merely by loss of OBA fluorescence. Hence, the commonly cited notion that papers merely revert to the paper's natural white state when the OBAs fade is false, at least for papers containing TiO2.
In the upcoming Aardenburg tests to start in 2020 I will deliberately place some papers that do not have TiO2 but do contain OBAs into test to see if they also exhibit LILIS. I don't think they will. These are papers like Moab Entrada Bright (not to be confused with Entrada Natural) It is loaded with OBAs, but does not have TiO2.
cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
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The language here is a little bit confusing... Does this mean to say that Canson Platine does not include any OBA? I'm referring to "not completely free of any kind of brighteners" line :)
I think John mistyped a little, and that he meant to say "is completely free". I'm happy to jump in here on John's behalf only because I do know the answer. Platine is totally free of OBAs, and both spectrophotometer readings as well as basic blacklight tests demonstrate that Platine is completely OBA-free.
cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
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That was an odd sentence that I wrote, but what I was referring to is Platine is not a “natural” rag paper in that it has some pigment brighteners that make it whiter than the other papers of its kind but still does not contain dye brighteners ( or titanium dioxide if I remember correctly from discussing this with Mark awhile back). And that is the very reason it bugs me to see Wilhelm Research rate it with less longevity than Canson Baryta and the rc papers that contain one or both of those.
Apparently Platine has some kind of silica pigment in it that other similar papers do not have, so it’s unique in that respect, apparently. I used to think Breathinc Color Lyve might have the same form of brightening pigment, but now from the black light test I see it has some oba. The reason the Lyve subtle neutral brightness doesn’t bother me is the very durable Timeless varnish I use on it.
John
I think John mistyped a little, and that he meant to say "is completely free". I'm happy to jump in here on John's behalf only because I do know the answer. Platine is totally free of OBAs, and both spectrophotometer readings as well as basic blacklight tests demonstrate that Platine is completely OBA-free.
cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
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That was an odd sentence that I wrote, but what I was referring to is Platine is not a “natural” rag paper in that it has some pigment brighteners that make it whiter than the other papers of its kind but still does not contain dye brighteners ( or titanium dioxide if I remember correctly from discussing this with Mark awhile back). And that is the very reason it bugs me to see Wilhelm Research rate it with less longevity than Canson Baryta and the rc papers that contain one or both of those.
Apparently Platine has some kind of silica pigment in it that other similar papers do not have, so it’s unique in that respect, apparently. I used to think Breathinc Color Lyve might have the same form of brightening pigment, but now from the black light test I see it has some oba. The reason the Lyve subtle neutral brightness doesn’t bother me is the very durable Timeless varnish I use on it.
John
This is interesting as, when I was researching papers, I found that Platine was a brighter white than other papers that contained OBAs... At least when not viewed in light containing large amounts of UV :)
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Yes, that is what I like about it, the whiteness remains consistent under tungsten or daylight, and does not fluoresce under daylight or pure uv light. I find it very neutral in hue, not warm and not cool under any illumination. It’s great for black and white neutral prints as the highlights don’t shift from the hue of the shadows and midtones of the ink.. Warmer papers or bluer papers can create a split tone that may or may not be desirable.
This is interesting as, when I was researching papers, I found that Platine was a brighter white than other papers that contained OBAs... At least when not viewed in light containing large amounts of UV :)
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the thing that bugs me the most is the TiO2 issue. There are easy ways to detect OBAs but if a paper manufacturer has TiO2 in the coating, there's not an easy way to check for this other than to look for problems down the line. While paper manufacturers do advertise the use of barium sulfate in coating, they certainly do not mention TiO2. There is a group of Dutch researchers who have developed what looks like a simple test for TiO2 but it's focused more on the presence in paint pigments: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026265X15003288 Maybe one of our Dutch members can contact them to see if this can be extrapolated to ink jet papers.
Reading that article (fast though) I think the use of TiO2 itself does not have to be that harmful for the longevity of encapsulated pigment particle inks. As long as there is no OBA used in the paper along with the TiO2. The usual OBAs are dyes (stilbene etc) so what is described in the article suits what we know now of the combination of TiO2 and OBAs, thanks to Aardenburg Imaging. In practice I doubt there are any inkjet papers with and without OBAs that do not contain TiO2 as a whitening agent. On the use of BaSo4, it was in a Sihl publication I think that I saw 15% content mentioned for that whitening agent. The only number so far and it did not tell whether it was per weight or volume, a percentage of the total paper structure or just of the inkjet coating. It made me sceptical on the "Baryte" branding of inkjet papers. It still is more an attempt to bring the old baryta analogue paper white and surface/tactical experience to inkjet printing than something else. Anyway the whitening agent industry has a wide variety of products that can contain more than just TiO2/BaSo4 in the mix. Zinc oxides, kaolin, etc are added as well and mixes like that get their brand or industry names we have no clue about.
Whether chemistry could be an answer to detect TiO2, in its different qualities, in the paper structure? I have to read it better but usually that is a messy route. I do not think the institutes involved will answer my Dutch requests either. There was never an interest in my SpectrumViz project from institutes like that. Sure it hardly can be called a scientific project but I still have to see work done at that scale somewhere else. Most of these conservation research projects aim at curing the problems with aged art/photography works and do not aim at preventing problems that will occur in the next decades. An industry like Akzo Nobel (mentioned in the article) today delivers whitening agents for paper production and the conservation products for the restoration of aged art works. They have the best knowledge of what could go wrong but as a commercial entity their goal is their next stock result. Requests from museum restoration departments are honored (sparingly) by governmental subsidies for university research. The character of these institutes is one of looking back more than predicting what lies ahead, by that creating their livelihood for the next decades. Photographer's collectives / associations seem to be inadequate to take initiatives on increasing longevity of their products. Outside the US nothing has been done with the disastrously fading Kodak / Agfa color print films and prints in the 1970's -80's, the same with the Epson "orange plague" dye ink inkjet prints. At least some class actions happened in the US, we stil have to learn something over here. Anyway that is also not more than some compensation for lost value. I wonder why a company like FujiFilm actually did more for the longevity of chromogenic color film/prints than EU or US companies. Something to do with their crafts tradition? So far it seems that individuals have to fill in the gaps. Henry Wilhelm did that decades ago. Mark does it now as far as his budget goes.
Saturday I was at a discussion about the archiving / publishing of photographer's estates. Initiatives are fragmented in what they want, some restricted in their goal by the conditions set by their financial supporters, some set arbitrary limits to keep the influx low (with to me quite odd arguments). In general the art photographers fell overboard as their work is not strictly bound by local area content in their images and on the other hand they were not commercially active enough over a ten year period. In conservation/publishing one group took the headlong rush into the internet cloud, more or less with the advice to burn the original film and print collection afterwards, another institute sees a decade of preparing one estate as quite normal for archiving, depends on the facilities of other institutes for cold rooms etc. And it wants all the rights on the material but has no plan on publishing. I would not call their financial structures as sound either. Best thing I saw was a private initiative of two photographers that preserved, indexed, presented in book, with loving care, the works of a deceased amateur photographer they learned from in the past. They take care of new prints, the sale of old prints and whatever will be needed to keep the work alive. This way it could also still be viewed as intended and not just seen on a display. The past has shown that B&W film/glass and prints can survive hundreds of years (including two or three wars here) with some care. We still have to see what a cyber war or just some amateur hacking can do to the cloud. Discussing media that can survive better in the future didn't get time in that discussion.
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots
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Reading that article (fast though) I think the use of TiO2 itself does not have to be that harmful for the longevity of encapsulated pigment particle inks. As long as there is no OBA used in the paper along with the TiO2. The usual OBAs are dyes (stilbene etc) so what is described in the article suits what we know now of the combination of TiO2 and OBAs, thanks to Aardenburg Imaging. In practice I doubt there are any inkjet papers with and without OBAs that do not contain TiO2 as a whitening agent. On the use of BaSo4, it was in a Sihl publication I think that I saw 15% content mentioned for that whitening agent. The only number so far and it did not tell whether it was per weight or volume, a percentage of the total paper structure or just of the inkjet coating. It made me sceptical on the "Baryte" branding of inkjet papers. It still is more an attempt to bring the old baryta analogue paper white and surface/tactical experience to inkjet printing than something else. Anyway the whitening agent industry has a wide variety of products that can contain more than just TiO2/BaSo4 in the mix. Zinc oxides, kaolin, etc are added as well and mixes like that get their brand or industry names we have no clue about.
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots
It will be interesting to see if any data can be generated about papers that contain TiO2 but no OBAs. Maybe what Mark has seen in some of the discoloration only takes place with OBA containing papers. I think the last point that I highlighted is important. There are a lot of different whitening agents that are sold and paper manufacturers are not disclosing what they use. It's left up to us to try to figure this out.
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Are there any Ti02 whitened fiber gloss papers that don’t contain oba dyes that are safe for the long term?
Like you guys have discussed, it’s impossible for all of us end users trying to advise clients about media to know exactly what to advise. I always tell them that “natural” papers like Hahnemuehle Photorag Pearl or Photorag Baryta or Platine iwith its proprietary whitener are the safest in the fiber gloss realm. There is also the Silver Rag if it’s still being sold by Intellicoat, and possibly the warm Innova. Though the warm Harmon that is no longer made was shown to have bleaching problems for some reason. I try to only use media that is produced in large volume by companies that are going to continue producing it over time. I also like to stick with a few papers that I can stock in roll form. Unfortunately I am very suspicious of smaller companies that buy paper stock and coat it themselves, unless the coating is done by Scholler or someone like that. That’s the same way I feel about knock off color pigments.
I guess I need to spend more time with Ernsts’s comprehensive list, though as he says it’s almost impossible to know exactly what formula of Ti02 is being used. It seems like avoiding oba dyes is the easy part.
John
Reading that article (fast though) I think the use of TiO2 itself does not have to be that harmful for the longevity of encapsulated pigment particle inks. As long as there is no OBA used in the paper along with the TiO2. The usual OBAs are dyes (stilbene etc) so what is described in the article suits what we know now of the combination of TiO2 and OBAs, thanks to Aardenburg Imaging. In practice I doubt there are any inkjet papers with and without OBAs that do not contain TiO2 as a whitening agent. On the use of BaSo4, it was in a Sihl publication I think that I saw 15% content mentioned for that whitening agent. The only number so far and it did not tell whether it was per weight or volume, a percentage of the total paper structure or just of the inkjet coating. It made me sceptical on the "Baryte" branding of inkjet papers. It still is more an attempt to bring the old baryta analogue paper white and surface/tactical experience to inkjet printing than something else. Anyway the whitening agent industry has a wide variety of products that can contain more than just TiO2/BaSo4 in the mix. Zinc oxides, kaolin, etc are added as well and mixes like that get their brand or industry names we have no clue about.
Whether chemistry could be an answer to detect TiO2, in its different qualities, in the paper structure? I have to read it better but usually that is a messy route. I do not think the institutes involved will answer my Dutch requests either. There was never an interest in my SpectrumViz project from institutes like that. Sure it hardly can be called a scientific project but I still have to see work done at that scale somewhere else. Most of these conservation research projects aim at curing the problems with aged art/photography works and do not aim at preventing problems that will occur in the next decades. An industry like Akzo Nobel (mentioned in the article) today delivers whitening agents for paper production and the conservation products for the restoration of aged art works. They have the best knowledge of what could go wrong but as a commercial entity their goal is their next stock result. Requests from museum restoration departments are honored (sparingly) by governmental subsidies for university research. The character of these institutes is one of looking back more than predicting what lies ahead, by that creating their livelihood for the next decades. Photographer's collectives / associations seem to be inadequate to take initiatives on increasing longevity of their products. Outside the US nothing has been done with the disastrously fading Kodak / Agfa color print films and prints in the 1970's -80's, the same with the Epson "orange plague" dye ink inkjet prints. At least some class actions happened in the US, we stil have to learn something over here. Anyway that is also not more than some compensation for lost value. I wonder why a company like FujiFilm actually did more for the longevity of chromogenic color film/prints than EU or US companies. Something to do with their crafts tradition? So far it seems that individuals have to fill in the gaps. Henry Wilhelm did that decades ago. Mark does it now as far as his budget goes.
Saturday I was at a discussion about the archiving / publishing of photographer's estates. Initiatives are fragmented in what they want, some restricted in their goal by the conditions set by their financial supporters, some set arbitrary limits to keep the influx low (with to me quite odd arguments). In general the art photographers fell overboard as their work is not strictly bound by local area content in their images and on the other hand they were not commercially active enough over a ten year period. In conservation/publishing one group took the headlong rush into the internet cloud, more or less with the advice to burn the original film and print collection afterwards, another institute sees a decade of preparing one estate as quite normal for archiving, depends on the facilities of other institutes for cold rooms etc. And it wants all the rights on the material but has no plan on publishing. I would not call their financial structures as sound either. Best thing I saw was a private initiative of two photographers that preserved, indexed, presented in book, with loving care, the works of a deceased amateur photographer they learned from in the past. They take care of new prints, the sale of old prints and whatever will be needed to keep the work alive. This way it could also still be viewed as intended and not just seen on a display. The past has shown that B&W film/glass and prints can survive hundreds of years (including two or three wars here) with some care. We still have to see what a cyber war or just some amateur hacking can do to the cloud. Discussing media that can survive better in the future didn't get time in that discussion.
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots
-
Are there any Ti02 whitened fiber gloss papers that don’t contain oba dyes that are safe for the long term?
Like you guys have discussed, it’s impossible for all of us end users trying to advise clients about media to know exactly what to advise. I always tell them that “natural” papers like Hahnemuehle Photorag Pearl or Photorag Baryta or Platine iwith its proprietary whitener are the safest in the fiber gloss realm. There is also the Silver Rag if it’s still being sold by Intellicoat, and possibly the warm Innova. Though the warm Harmon that is no longer made was shown to have bleaching problems for some reason. I try to only use media that is produced in large volume by companies that are going to continue producing it over time. I also like to stick with a few papers that I can stock in roll form. Unfortunately I am very suspicious of smaller companies that buy paper stock and coat it themselves, unless the coating is done by Scholler or someone like that. That’s the same way I feel about knock off color pigments.
I guess I need to spend more time with Ernsts’s comprehensive list, though as he says it’s almost impossible to know exactly what formula of Ti02 is being used. It seems like avoiding oba dyes is the easy part.
John
Ernst's data is the best available in terms of paper spectra. Mark's data at Aardenburg is great if there is a paper and inkset you are interested in. Museo ink jet paper has been sold several times since Crane first worked with Intellicoat. It's now owned by Dietzgen (the company that used to make slide rules) who own a number paper lines. I don't know if the recipe/manufacturer have changed at all. I have done some printing on Moab Juniper Rag which is also a Baryta paper with no OBAs. It has a similar finish to Silver Rag and the spectral response is also in the same range. However, letter size is on back order and I need to re-profile now that Canon has a dedicated Baryta setting for the Pro-1000 printer.
I've attached the spectra for the three Baryta papers from Ernst's database. I think the drop off for Juniper Rag is a result of TiO2 being present.
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Thanks Alan,
Has Juniper Rag been fade tested? Moab seems like a pretty reliable company overall but like all the others, their image stability varies widely depending on the paper selected.
I just pulled out a print done on Silver Rag over a decade ago and it’s pretty warm by today’s standards.
Ernst's data is the best available in terms of paper spectra. Mark's data at Aardenburg is great if there is a paper and inkset you are interested in. Museo ink jet paper has been sold several times since Crane first worked with Intellicoat. It's now owned by Dietzgen (the company that used to make slide rules) who own a number paper lines. I don't know if the recipe/manufacturer have changed at all. I have done some printing on Moab Juniper Rag which is also a Baryta paper with no OBAs. It has a similar finish to Silver Rag and the spectral response is also in the same range. However, letter size is on back order and I need to re-profile now that Canon has a dedicated Baryta setting for the Pro-1000 printer.
I've attached the spectra for the three Baryta papers from Ernst's database. I think the drop off for Juniper Rag is a result of TiO2 being present.
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Thanks Alan,
Has Juniper Rag been fade tested? Moab seems like a pretty reliable company overall but like all the others, their image stability varies widely depending on the paper selected.
I just pulled out a print done on Silver Rag over a decade ago and it’s pretty warm by today’s standards.
Juniper Rag has not been tested. The only papers that have are Entrada Rag and Somerset Enhanced Velvet. I'll contact Mark about sponsoring a test of Juniper Rag.
Silver Rag is a warm paper as it never contained any Baryta.
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In the smooth matte warm cotton papers you will see several that have the UV absorption bend downwards but no significant bump in blue output that is typical for OBA. I find it hard to say whether that is just TiO2. For example the Mediajet sample in the attached spectral plots image could well have some OBA aboard. More balanced with other whitening agents that the result is still a warm paper with a high total white reflectance. As written already there are more whitening agents than TiO2, BaSO4, OBAs and TiO2 can have some different crystalization forms, not to mention tweaked versions of it. I do not know all the typical spectral plots of the whitening agents and my Eye One Pro spectrometer is not up to that task either I think. You would need one that goes further into UV and uses a finer spacing on the wave lengths, possibly further beyond red to see heat output as well. I could use ArgyllCMS to get to 3.333 NM steps but the S/N ratio may suffer and the spectral range is not really widened. Right now I do not know whether I can translate its spectral data as easily as it is done from iShare to SpectrumViz. Besides discussing this with my son who does the software part, he likes to rewrite SpectrumViz so it can be used on the server itself and no download is needed. Anyway he will not have much time for that right now.
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots
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Thanks to Ernst's Spectrumviz i found out that Schoeller had removed the J23000 and replaced IT with J24000, but with the same name. But it is different, the White point "b" value is now 2.3, but with the J23000 it is(was) 0.7 .
Checking Schoeller, they claim papers are identical. 🤔
Funny enough there is no data on the Schoeller website anymore about J23000.
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Thanks to Ernst's Spectrumviz i found out that Schoeller had removed the J23000 and replaced IT with J24000, but with the same name.
Possibly to do with the release of Epson Legacy papers specifically the Legacy Platine in this case.
Brian.