RE: Pictorico pinholes

[Eric Neilsen <ejnphoto@sbcglobal.net>]

Diana,  You might find that adding humidity to the sheet before printing
might take care of it. Here is my reasoning:

What makes this sheet work? Something on a plastic sheet holds the ink. If
it is dried out, then perhaps it is not able to handle the ink, and areas
that have the slightest bit of problem, don't absorb the ink and it goes to
the next open space. You may also slow down when you peel them apart. I find
that the sheets can stay together quite well and you may be seeing a flaking
or lift off.  

Or ... you just have a slight hiccup in the ink follow. Most prints are made
at 1440 or 720 while digital negs run at 2880. Since it is a random event,
the file is not more than likely at fault.

As for checking for missed dust spotting after unsharp masking,...   There
is an action that I picked up from the NAPP site that has a "look for light,
and look for dark" specks. By alternating a curve between 100% and 0% with
the curve window set to 10 instead of 4, you can drive the pixel apart and
look at your image at extremes.( start one at 0 and the other at 100)  You
make two curve layer adjustments and apply one to dark and one to light.
This allows you to see the minute flaws that you might otherwise miss. Clean
them up BEFORE unsharp masking and they will not be a problem. It was posted
to work with in camera digital capture but I find it works well with scanned
images quite well.  


Ok, so some WAG and some good advice, what more can you ask for on a MOnday
morning....


Eric


Eric Neilsen Photography
4101 Commerce Street
Suite 9
Dallas, TX 75226
http://e.neilsen.home.att.net
http://ericneilsenphotography.com
Skype ejprinter
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Diana Bloomfield [mailto:dhbloomfield@bellsouth.net]
> Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2006 10:30 PM
> To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
> Subject: Re: Pictorico pinholes
> 
> Hi David,
> 
> I had to think about that for a minute . . . but maybe that would
> reveal something, *if* the pinholes consistently appeared in the same
> place every time, but they don't.
> On a brighter note, I've had the humidifier going in that room for a
> while now, and I've printed off 2 since then.  The first was
> significantly better, but still had a couple of little pinholes, but
> much smaller.  I printed a second one that was also good, but still a
> couple of pinholes.  I'm now printing off a third one.  So I'm
> thinking it really is a humidity issue.  At least I hope this
> corrects the problem.
> 
> Thanks for all the suggestions.
> 
> Diana
> 
> On Dec 3, 2006, at 10:33 PM, davidhatton@totalise.co.uk wrote:
> 
> >  Hi,
> >
> > You could try printing the image upside down. That should help you
> > find out what's going on
> >
> > David H
> >
> >
> > On Dec 4 2006, Jack Fulton wrote:
> >
> > Diana:
> > Every once in a while occurrences such as this happen . . and, watch
> > out, you will go crazy.
> > Some thoughts:
> > 1. Sometimes, particularly during the winter, voltage varies in the
> > home . . . a voltage stabilizer can aid by stopping spikes and
> > drops in the voltage coming into the home. A rather inexpensive one,
> > made in China (of course) is the OPTI/UPS Model #
> > SS1200 . . . I think the cost is around $35
> >
> > 2. You mention static electricity and if it is very dry where you
> > live that might be a part of the problem. Can you walk across your
> > rug, shuffling your feet, and then when touching a doorknob make a
> > spark? That indicates static electricity. An aid to that is to
> > take a metal portion of your printer and screw a wire (such as
> > telephone wire available @ a good hardware or electronics store)
> > and run it to a ground such as a pipe for water. Do not stick it into
> > your wall plug outlet.
> >
> > These things might help. Surges in home voltage can cause a piezo-
> > electric head to spurt more or not spurt. I noticed various errors
> > while running 2 Epson 7800 printers of my one G5 Macintosh.
> > Another colleague had similar glitches and was printing of large 36
> > x 48 inch paper. It would print and then run a bad line or two,
> > therefore ruining the paper. He actually had to purchase a new
> > computer (a used Mac G4 with tons of great software) and that cured
> > his problem. Everything else on the computer worked but when
> > printing. And, he downloaded al new drivers, cleaned, etc. just as
> > you have done.
> >
> > So, that is three things to think about.
> > Best of fortune with this pesky problem
> > Jack Fulton
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On December2006, at 3:58 PM, Diana Bloomfield wrote:
> >
> > > Hi all,
> >
> > I have a question maybe someone can answer here. I > have used
> > Pictorico for a while, with an Epson 2200. I have been > working on
> > one particular negative, and every single time I print > it, on
> > Pictorico, I get these little pinholes (always always up in > the
> > blank sky area). I have cleaned everything-- my house, the > dog,
> > the computer/scanner/printer, the room itself, and I've > cleaned the
> > original negative obsessively. The entire > room/computer/scanner/
> > printer/negative/dog are cleaner than > they've ever been. I opened
> > up a new packet of Pictorico, thinking > that maybe something was
> > wrong with the original packet I was > using. But the first one out
> > of the box--I printed it, and it was > all clean, except for about 6
> > little pinholes in the sky. Well, > they vary in size. I'm going
> > crazy with this.
> >
> > They > don't seem to be dust marks; they just look more like little
> > > places where the ink isn't going down properly--or something. So I
> > > don't know if this is a static electricity problem or a humidity
> > > problem or what. I really haven't a clue. So if anyone else has
> > > suffered from this, please tell me what to do about these little
> > > pinholes. I'm going crazy here.
> >
> > Thanks for any help!
> > >
> > Diana
> >
> >