Breathing Color Crystalline Canvas

[Craig Murphy]

Is this an actual product? I have never really seen it as available on their site.  Been a long time too.   

[bill t.]

About a year ago it surfaced, then submerged.  Big technical problems.

A few months ago, another surface and submerge cycle!  Smaller technical problems.

I have worked my way through 10, 44" rolls of the more recent stuff.  Great prints, huge gamut.  And a very nice surface.  But no way can it go uncoated, which is true of every gloss and satin canvas I have ever tried.  Aqueous coatings (and BTW every known spray cleaner) are such strong solvents for the printed surface that extremely careful coating technique is required.  Rolling is absolutely out of the question, my one rolling experiment with Glamour II dissolved the image within seconds.

To it's credit, I think carefully coated Crystalline has the best surface quality of any media I have ever used, especially in terms of light diffusion from sources directly behind the viewer.  It's like satin going on matte.

Bottom line, for the time being use Epson Exhibition Canvas Satin if you want that look.  Pretty much identical in terms of gamut and appearance.  The Epson surface is a little more-canvas like, but very similar when viewed on the wall.

Be careful though...those rich, high gamut glossy canvases will make it hard to go back to matte!

[Craig Murphy]

Thanks for the reply.  I will probably switch to this whenever they can get their manufacturing issues solved.  Presently I'm using IJ Technologies Black Satin Canvas.  Also tried rolling Glamour II on Black Satin with the same wonderful smeared ink results.     I'm hoping the Crystalline is a bit whiter also.   

[bill t.]

The latest Crsytalline sample is extremely white and oh so bright!  And the surface quality is extremely consistent with very few defects.

Of course, there was that one roll where the canvas was attached to the core with a big bead of sticky glue, rather than the usual tape.  Won't go on, gotta keep the blood pressure under control.

[Craig Murphy]

I bet your printer didn't speak to you for weeks after the glue incident.    I'm getting a free sample of a 'metallic' canvas from the company that sends me Black Satin.  They say (of course) that photogs are going crazy over it.  Anyone else here ever print on this type of canvas?  

[darlingm]

About a year ago it surfaced, then submerged.  Big technical problems.

A few months ago, another surface and submerge cycle!  Smaller technical problems.
. . .

Do you know what the problems with it were?  Was it just that people rolling rather than spraying coating were having ink pull up, or something worse?

And to the O/P, I hear you.  It's been "2 weeks away" for months now.    I've also found Black Diamond's Canvas Satin to be a nice replacement until Crystalline's ready.

[neile]

I've tried a metallic canvas from somewhere. It was... Weird.

[bill t.]

The biggest technical problem is that there is no canvas available of any kind from any manufacturer that can stand up to normal, long term display without either coating or being covered with glazing.

I suspect the manufacturer's have maneuvered themselves into a kind of hole about the no-coating-needed thing.  As long as one is claiming it, all the others feel they have to as well, reality be damned.  It's kind of fun to read the double talk on the various pages promoting these products.  Even Epson does it!

The problem is, that also creates unreasonable expectations for our professional customers...oh you should use that canvas you don't have to coat and charge us a lot less money!  I wish BC and the others would just come clean on these issues.  Glossy canvas makes gorgeous prints, and that's enough to get me to buy it.

Crystalline, like all the others, is sorta water proof, provided any moisture is allowed to dry by itself without any attempt to wipe it off.  But if the tiniest drop of Windex or any other household cleanser lands on a print, it will drill its way down to white gesso in a few seconds.  It's kind of stunning!  No way is an unprotected print like that going to survive in a private home, much less in public venues where legions of Ammonia wielding maids prowl the halls every day.

And abrasion resistance is only so-so.  Wipe a paper towel over a bare print, and you will see color on the towel and if you look close you will see "snow caps" at the peaks of the canvas texture where ink was removed.  Again not just Crystalline, but that whole category of canvases.

But there is good news too!

It is extremely easy to coat all these canvases if you know how to do it.  A single, carefully applied coat that deposits about 2ml of Glamour II concentrate per square foot does the job, that's about 1/3 what it takes for matte canvas.  Drying time is fast and leveling is incredibly good.  Even with a single coat there is not the slightest visible mottling viewed from any angle.  With those thin coats, drying times are about 10 minutes to a point where it's safe to handle, and a few hours at most to when it's rugged enough for mounting.  I have no trouble spraying 90 square feet of canvas stripped up on three large backings in less than an hour, gun prep and cleaning time included.

And it's a joy to do proofing on glossy canvas.  It looks almost exactly like it's ever going to look coming right off the printer.  Sweet.

[Kanvas Keepsakes]

What's this glossy and black satin canvas I've been reading about?  Probably a stupid question but can I pretty much use any canvas type on my Canon ipf8300?  Such as Epson canvas?  Any links to these products so I can check 'em out? I currently use BC's Lyve and am happy with it but would love to try something new.

[Craig Murphy]

http://ijtechnologies.com/index.php?target=categories&category_id=187    I get mine from www.dpmedia.com   I just needed to order a 36" roll but wish I had ordered a roll of the Epson that Bill T mentioned.  The Epson is more expensive however and DPMedia ships to me free.  One thing I do not like about the Black Diamond Satin canvas is its very stiff.   

[bill t.]

Single rolls of Epson Exhibition Satin canvas are priced at about the "Buy 3" price for Cyrstalline at Breathing Color.  Inkjetart.com, etc.  That's nice when you're not quite ready for 10 rolls at a time.  It prints great on the 8300.  Downside is you will need to have your own profiles made, for some reason Epson doesn't supply profiles for Canon printers.

PS I think you can buy 13" x 20' trial rolls, which is enough to do the Canon MCT calibrations, print profiling swatches, and run and few test prints.

[Jeff Magidson]

I'm at a bit of a loss to understand what is going on with Breathing Color. They reintroduced Crystalline but it has been "out of stock" for months. I was in the process of testing their Lyve canvas along with their Timeless varnish (their sales rep assured me Timeless was the best product to use) but now Timeless is completely out of stock too.

I'm looking for a good Satin finish varnish... any recommendations?

[bill t.]

Glamour II Gloss mixed with about 5% Matte is definitely satin-like.  A little bit of Matte takes Gloss down really fast.  And actually, Glamour II Gloss applied to matte canvas would also meet many definitions of Satin.  If you are applying multiple coats, all but the last one should be pure Gloss to avoid building up haze.

I think BC got a little ahead of itself there for a while.  To it's credit, it seems to be addressing some basic problems with Crystalline and Timeless, and has already greatly improved canvas substrate quality.  I appreciate that.  It ultimately listens to customer complaints.  And the new soft-center canvas rolls are very cool, you can use 100% of a roll of canvas without ripples.  That came out of customer feedback.

Glamour II is much better behaved than Timeless from an application point of view, although it does not claim to have "UV protection."  No way would I use Timeless in a production environment in its current formulation, don't have the time to be building up multiple coats when the production pressure is on.

[Ken Doo]

....Glamour II is much better behaved than Timeless from an application point of view, although it does not claim to have "UV protection."  ....

Just a note, ---- Breathing Color's Glamour II does provide UV protection (at least from what I was told by BC), though perhaps not to the level that BC's Timeless claims. 

Also agree with Bill, that Glamour II is simply easier to apply by hvlp than Timeless, at least in my personal experience.  It's not difficult to learn the personality/characteristics of Glamour II, and subsequently protecting canvas with it becomes very simple and easy to adjust for the desired finish.  For fine art papers, Timeless is better, but also needs to be rolled on papers and not hvlp for best results.

ken

[Craig Murphy]

Ugh.  Black Satin canvas not available from my supplier.  I ordered a roll of the Epson Ex. Canvas Satin.  Does anyone have a guess as to the closest icc profile that I could use from the Epson site?  Premium Canvas Satin for the 4880 maybe?  They don't have anything for this canvas for my 9800.  Or any profiles for the 9800 anymore.    No time to have a custom profile made for some prints I have to make.  How does the Epson canvas react to rolling on Glamour II?  Does it need to be sprayed?  Thanks for any suggestions.  

[darlingm]

Uggh!  Earlier, you said you were using Black Diamond Satin.  By not being available, do you mean you tried to order some more and they were out?  All of the Black Diamond suppliers I've talked with have IJ Technologies (the manufacturer) drop ship.  Wonder if that means the manufacturer is out.

That's incredibly lame that they don't seem to have 9800 profiles on their site anymore.  I did a bit of looking, and didn't come up with anything either.  Sorry I can't answer what profile would be closest or how it works with Glamour II.  I've only printed a small test print on Epson Exhibition Canvas Satin on my 9900 on a sample sheet cut by my Epson supplier, and wasn't satisfied with it at all.  I was having ink pooling, so all the valleys on the canvas were really dark.  I was using their recommended settings and decreasing ink density in the driver, but it didn't improve.  I know further decreasing the ink density would eventually work, but when I ran into this is when I found Black Diamond, which has a wider color gamut than Epson's.

[Craig Murphy]

Yes.  Its out at IJ.  They don't even have the canvas made as of now so it would be 2-3 weeks before availability. 

[bill t.]

Ugh.  Black Satin canvas not available from my supplier.  I ordered a roll of the Epson Ex. Canvas Satin.  Does anyone have a guess as to the closest icc profile that I could use from the Epson site?  Premium Canvas Satin for the 4880 maybe?  They don't have anything for this canvas for my 9800.  Or any profiles for the 9800 anymore.    No time to have a custom profile made for some prints I have to make.  How does the Epson canvas react to rolling on Glamour II?  Does it need to be sprayed?  Thanks for any suggestions.  

Ahem.  Gee, I wonder if the 9800 Crystalline profiles from BC would be pretty close?  But I bet the the Epson built 9880 ones are pretty good, too.

Yes, gotta coat.  Ex Can Sat has all the foibles of every other glossy canvas that you don't have to coat, including that you have to coat it.

I strip up about 30 square feet of canvas on a 4x8 board, foamcore or Coroplast will do.  I mix up Glam II at 1:1.  I weigh the loaded gun.  I back out the nozzle pin not very much, only about 1 turn on my old style Fuji gun.  Spray a test pattern on some dark material, like a piece of black Gator scrap.  8 or 9 inches wide.  If all is well, I switch into Tai Chi mode and spray vertical passes on the canvas, moving the gun at almost exactly 1 foot per second (I use a metronome).  I advance the gun 4 inches to the left, and continue.  It's important that the spray lands on the canvas wet, but dries almost immediately.  You don't want to be spraying tacky paint dust, which gives a crud coating, but OTOH don't soak the canvas!  Crossing an 8 foot wide board, the starting side will be at most a little tacky by the time I finish spraying the left side.    I weigh the gun again to insure that I have sprayed pretty close to 4 ml per square foot of diluted GII, of which 2ml would be the original concentrate.

The weighing thing is a little fastidious, but it helps at the beginning to get the spray density right.

Warning...GII is strong solvent for Glossy canvases!  You don't want really wet coating hanging around on the canvas for more than a minute or two after spraying.  On the 8300 blues and violets are most vulnerable, and will puddle under persistently wet coating.  But have had zero problems with the above technique and I really do like the surface that is produced.  Under normal circumstances such thin coats can produce a kind of gloss differential on matte canvas when viewed from the side, but for whatever reason GII levels like a champ on the glossy canvases and I have never seen a hint otherwise.

And of course, once that initial coat is dry you go back and add more if you wish.  But I don't think it's really necessary.

Oh, rolling on Epson Gloss (and Satin) dissolves the image in a couple seconds.  Any more questions about that?  

[Craig Murphy]

No more questions about that. :-)  Reason I was wondering is I have been doing art reproductions for someone on the Black Satin Canvas and they in turn are coating them by brush with Liquitex Gel.  The same stuff that artist use on acrylic paintings.  Its been fine on the Bl. Sat.  I'm crossing my fingers it will work ok on the Epson canvas.  Thanks Bill.

[darlingm]

No, no, no!  Finally landed a large client with Black Diamond Satin, taking the place of Crystalline.  Two manufacturers out of satin canvas at once.