Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: John V. on May 04, 2020, 03:02:56 pm
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I'd like to offer some unframed, hung prints. Totally exposed. Any suggestions for a more durable, at least "tear resistant" media that produces good prints. Aside from canvas...
John V.
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Vinyl?
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Aqueous inkjet printable Tyvek media is available from Freedom Paper and Lexjet.
You may be familiar with Tyvek material as it is used in some kinds of envelopes.
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What size media are you looking into? Scrim "vinyl" is a good product that is tear and water resistant.
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Back before I started using real jacquard silks, I used one of these Lexjet poly silks. I thought is was pretty nice, affordable and with better dmax and gamut than real silk, and a lot more durable. Several years ago I was in San Francisco and saw a show in one of the Geary Street galleries of the work done in India by Linda Conor. They were advertised as “silk” but were obviously polyester, and I liked them. I didn’t like them as much as my jacquard Haboti real silk, but everything is easier and cheaper with poly silk. Vinyl is obviously plastic advertising material.
I believe this is what I was using 17 years ago.
https://www.lexjet.com/lexjet-poly-select-heavy
Jacquard also has inkjet coated polyester silk but I haven’t tried it.
www.jacquardinkjet.com
https://www.inkjetfabrics.com/products/digital-fabrics/polyester/
I want to try them both soon,
John
I'd like to offer some unframed, hung prints. Totally exposed. Any suggestions for a more durable, at least "tear resistant" media that produces good prints. Aside from canvas...
John V.
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I'd like to offer some unframed, hung prints. Totally exposed. Any suggestions for a more durable, at least "tear resistant" media that produces good prints. Aside from canvas...
When you say 'tear resistant' it would be good to get an idea of the kind of dangers you think these prints might have to endure. I've exhibited naked c-types and resin-coated inkjets without too much worry - but that was for relatively short periods (a couple of months), and in invigilated spaces.
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When you say 'tear resistant' it would be good to get an idea of the kind of dangers you think these prints might have to endure. I've exhibited naked c-types and resin-coated inkjets without too much worry - but that was for relatively short periods (a couple of months), and in invigilated spaces.
What size media are you looking into? Scrim "vinyl" is a good product that is tear and water resistant.
It would be a product my shop would offer. I wouldn't want to offer something so easily damaged.
Up to 24" in size.
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Would all/any of the materials mentioned by you guys (vinyl, tyvek, silk, etc) actually be able to product a print comparable to a real photo paper?
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It would be a product my shop would.
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whoops
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I've had excellent success from materials such as the discontinued Harman opaljet light blocking display materials. Base is similar material to CibaChromes - dimensionally very stable. Surface is somewhat fragile, until laminated - either ultragloss polyester to continue the Ciba look, or with a satin matt from Drytac.
Printed using Canon 8300/8400, hand rolled profiles. I'm sure the OBA content is through the roof, though that's where the UV laminate may help.
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You can take Breathing Color's Pura Smooth, Pura Velvet or Signa papers and spray it with multiple layers of Timeless (Gloss for every layer except the last - you can kill the gloss by making the last layer matte or satin). Water it down slightly (e.g. 4 parts Timeless to one part de-ionised water) and add a bit of surfactant to make it soak in more easily. This saturates the paper with Timeless and turns it into a fairly tear-resistant, fairly durable sheet.
I suspect this wouldn't work with a baryta or other non-matte paper, though - I doubt the Timeless would soak through it.
I wish there was more imagination applied to substrates, beyond the usual cotton or alpha-cellulose papers and cotton or poly-cotton canvas. Materials science is at a point where we have many more options available - options which are better than the traditional materials for certain purposes.
What about paper made from Tencel fibres? This is a cellulosic fibre, like cotton, but, since the fibres can be cut arbitrarily long, paper made from it can be made from much longer fibres, resulting in a paper with all the properties of cotton, but much more tear- and crease-resistant. Or a Tencel/UHDPE blend, which would be even stronger, much more dimensionally-stable and moisture-resistant, while still being water-permeable and able to absorb ink carrier fluid and water-based coatings, unlike a pure UHDPE paper such as Tyvek.
There's something to be said for a paper that doesn't need framing or coddling like ordinary papers, yet is capable of just as much resolution and doesn't have the texture of canvas. You could flat-mount it to a metal, wood or other substrate, displaying it unframed, while retaining the ability to un-mount and remount it as required, with little risk of damaging the print (not the case with ordinary paper prints). With a change of materials, you could make a paper just like that, with any of the usual paper textures (or none at all, for a super-smooth option). It's important to stick with components which are UV- and vvolatle chemical resistant, for archival longevity. But we have these materials available. What's stopping manufacturers from using them? Economics, I guess.