Re: Pictorico pinholes
Hi Eric,
Thanks. Good advice, all.
I am still getting a couple of pinholes, but nothing nearly as bad as
before. So I do think the humidifier helped a lot. I had noticed
that when I was pulling apart the sheets (before I used the
humidifier), I would do it slowly enough, but there would still be
this crackling kind of noise. Ouch. That really didn't sound good,
but I could never actually *see* a problem, but I suspect there was
definitely some little flaking or lift off, as you say--and always
random. I really wouldn't have thought it was that dry in this
house, but I also wonder about having the packet of unopened
Pictorico sitting around here for several months. Anyway, so I also
just ordered a new packet altogether (like I have nothing better to
spend my money on), and I'll see what that's like. Thanks, Eric. I
do appreciate all the good suggestions!
Diana
On Dec 4, 2006, at 10:13 AM, Eric Neilsen wrote:
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
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