Paper: sharpness of detail in one-pass anything

[cadunn <cadunn@vt2000.com>]

Hi List!

I've been thinking, dredging up my letterpress experience, where 
for fine printing on mouldmade, rag paper, I would humidify it 
before printing so that when it dried, the printed piece was 
tighter and more crisp due to the slight shrinkage.

So, I'm wondering about (in the one pass gum --or one pass 
anything) inserting a blank piece of transparency paper between 
the neg. and humidified paper during exposure, thus gaining a 
slight increase in sharpness of detail when the paper is finally 
dried.

OR, is the slight separation between the paper and the neg. due 
to the thickness of the transparency sheet going to negate the 
increase in sharpness gained from drying because that small 
distance will induce some "out-of-focusness"?

Clair