Friends,
I have to say again what a treasure, and community, this list is. One posts a problem and within a few hours, many artists come to one's aid.
Let me respond in a bit more detail.
Anne, thanks for papermaker's suggestion about humidying and then drying the prints. I will try it. Do you recommend only blotters and no pellon? (Ray, pellon is a fabric related item -- can't recall it's traditional use -- that some papermaker friends once advised for drying my prints, which are on handmade paper.) Unless the prints are quite dry, they really stick to the blotters if they more than even a few seconds without shuffling, while at least there is no adherence to the pellon.
Liam, I am using the same paper that gave me better results in the autumn, and I do coat to the edges of the paper. Ray, it would be interesting to try processing an uncoated small piece of my paper (it is quite expensive...), and see if the results are the same. The paper is very smooth before coating, and I do notice that after it dries, and before exposure, it is quite wavy/wrinkled. I would attribute the problems to that except that I was getting much smoother results with the exact same "work flow" (is that only a digital processes word now?) a month or so ago. (Ray, I will scan a print and send it to you off list.)
Finally, I did try my dry mount press and, as Jeremy predicted, the emulsion didn't "melt," but all that happened was that the wrinkles were pressed into the water, which looked even worse.
Thanks again to everyone and I'll look forward to any additional diagnoses/strategies.
Best,
Rita