Wet coating: (was) Re: Roller for gum (was: Re: humidity in your darkroom........

I keep thinking of one more loose end to tie up:

Keith Gerling wrote:
>
> In my experience, humidified paper: 1) has absolutely no effect on
> DMAX, and 2) greatly eases the coating process. 

I forgot to mention that just out of curiosity several days ago I
soaked a piece of paper and blotted the surface, as per Steve Anchell's
instructions, before coating it. I dried the coating before printing
(with a hair dryer, as usual). I couldn't actually tell any difference
in ease of coating between the wet paper and the same emulsion coated on
dry paper, (although it should be noted that my "dry" paper is probably
equivalent to Keith's humidified paper in its moisture content) but it
printed with exactly the same good DMax and the same good contrast as
the same print coated on dry paper; there was no stain, either pigment
or dichromate, and the highlights cleared well. In other words, the two
prints, coated dry and coated wet, looked exactly the same, which
corroborates Keith's observation above. I wish I had time to scan the
prints to show you, but I don't.

Please understand that by offering observations that seem to differ from
some others' observations, I am not suggesting that others' observations
are wrong or mistaken, not at all. I'm not arguing that humidity NEVER
affects printing, for heavens' sake; I'm simply saying that humidity
doesn't cause problems for me. In every case where people have observed
problems with humidity, it seems to be in combination with heat, so as
I said already in this thread, I'm inclined to believe that "it's not
the humidity, it's the heat" or at least the combination of the two, and
that's where I'd look for answers if I were looking.

Over and out,
 
Katharine
Received on Fri Jan 23 12:11:32 2004