U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: fogged digital negative?

Re: fogged digital negative?



I have been storing my digital negatives in a print box, either right after printing it, or right after making a print with it. So I really haven't been letting them air dry much at all - at least not in any intentional way. I've now reprinted the ones I would like to print with again and have placed them on a shelf in a closet to dry - with the ink side up. I won't be able to do any printing for the next two weeks, so I'll just let them dry out a few days, then put them in sleeves until I have time to print again in a couple of weeks. To be safe, I think I'll let them air dry a bit after printing also, before returning them to their sleeves.

Thanks again for all the good information. I hadn't given much thought to the negatives, so this has all helped a lot.

Gregg

On Apr 14, 2008, at 12:30 AM, Ender100@aol.com wrote:

Gregg,

My experience is that you can use digital negatives a number of times until the get scratched or you do something that wrecks them. I've used them up to 10 times and have not noticed any problem from the exposure to UV light.

If I understand correctly you used this negative before and it sounds like it picked up moisture from the coated paper this time. Did you notice having to peel the two apart?

Newly printed negatives will look "frosted" when viewed from the non- emulsion side until they dry a bit. This is very pronounced right at first.

The 2200 inks take much longer to dry than the current inks in the R2400. As Jon mentioned, you can give the negative a boost in drying with a hair dryer without damaging it, as long as you keep the hair dryer moving and don't overheat the negatives.

For the 2200, I think the negative would cure in a couple of hours on the original Pictorico and in less time on the Ultra Pictorico. An R2400 negative on Ultra is cured in about half and hour the the density remains stable after that.

The R1800 negatives take quite a while to cure and are prone to picking up dust during printing and right after. The 2200 and current inks don't seem to gather dust at all.

I always let my negatives cure emulsion side up.

Mark Nelson
Precision Digital Negatives
PDNPrint : Precision Digital Negatives
Mark I. Nelson Photography
In a message dated 4/12/08 3:28:45 PM, gregg@roanokesound.com writes:


I was printing some cyanotypes today and one of my digital negatives
seems to have "fogged". I've printed with this negative 3-4 times
before, with fairly consistent results. But today it added a dark
ring around the print. When I looked at the negative, it looked OK on
the inkjet side, but the other side had a strange, silvery fog to it.
The effect was to lighten the negative and print out darker around an
area about 6 inches in diameter.

Is this a normal problem for a digital negative - a short life span?
Or did I do something wrong - maybe use it too soon after printing the
negative. I don't remember how long I waited before using it to make
a print. But I've used it several times over several weeks. I'll
make another negative, but just wanted to check here to see what I may
have done wrong. The negative requires a 9 minute exposure for the
cyanotype and paper I'm using. I'm printing with a UV lightbox that's
around 26 x 20 inches or so, and about 4 inches from the bulbs.

- Gregg










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