Re: Pt/PD Paper for Superior resolution

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From: Katharine Thayer (kthayer@pacifier.com)
Date: 08/13/03-06:49:31 AM Z


Kate Mahoney wrote:
>
> Is this paper any good for other processes such as gum, cyan? I
> usually use printmaking paper, but it's very expensive.....

Hi Kate,
My first thought was that the slick surface wouldn't work for gum, but
since I had some Clearprint vellum handy and a bit of emulsion left
over from something else, ready to use, I went ahead and made a little
print yesterday afternoon for the heck of it. It actually prints gum
better than I would have thought, although not
wonderfully. The vellum is made of cotton which apparently gives it
enough tooth to hang onto the gum okay in spite of the slick surface,
and the paper maintains its integrity very nicely in the water. The
problems I saw are due to the thinness of the paper, as Kerik surmised:
(1) it sinks in the water, so you'd have to develop it face up and/or
keep a constant eye on it in development; (2) it dries all crinkly.
You'd need a press to press out the crinkles (a clothes-pressing iron
won't do it; I tried) and (3) you have to put heavier white paper behind
the vellum in order to see the print properly; as long as you have to
use a piece of regular paper anyway, why not just print on the paper in
the first place? A final note: The detail is not as good as with some
other papers, Fabriano Uno for example. Someone commented that for
platinum, he's found that the thinner the paper, the better the detail.
I do not find this to be true with gum.

BTW, I haven't seen an answer to Bob and Carla's question about color
and opacity. A piece of the ClearPrint 1000 weight has about the same
weight/feel in the hand as a piece of onionskin typing paper (am I
dating myself? Is onionskin something that doesn't exist any more?). It
is white and very translucent; I just laid it on a newspaper on my desk
and I can easily read the newspaper through it. On a scale of 1 to 10,
with 1 completely transparent and 10 completely opaque, I'd put it at
about a 2.5.
Katharine Thayer


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