Re: more on Fabriano Artistico

From: "Christina Z. Anderson" <zphoto@uslink.net>
Subject: Re: more on Fabriano Artistico
Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2004 22:43:16 -0500

> The soft press has too noticeable cross hatched grain in it for my
> liking.

I agree, I asked for HP first but they asked me if soft press was ok
and I didn't get a chance to look closely. I looked at it quickly
while the paper is being rolled up for me and didn't think it was that
bad. But surprisingly, paper surface was much more apparent in dim
safelight... and you say this was cheaper than Rives? Umm... at my
local store Rives BFK was the cheapest $2.??, Magnani was like $3.50
and Artistico was $5.12. If Artistico were cheaper and sold in HP, no
further question on my side before a complete switch. (In reality I
need to use up Magnani because of my filing space... my flat file
cabinet is primarily for coating and drying paper, not storing
paper...)

> It isn't a huge deal, but the hot press works great, and if I have
> any unevenness, I just whisk the coating with the Jerry's Artarama
> cheapy badger hair softener.

What do you mean? Do you "resurface" the coating with something?
(Please explain - it smells like something potentially useful for me.)

> I've been using it all summer unsized, but the next batch I buy I will
> probably size, because I worry less, and development times are shorter.
> I do find, too, that it is not easily absorbent. Cyanotype tends to
> sit on the top longer than on, like, Rives BFK, even with Tween added. It
> is also, as Kerik pointed out, very alkaline. Gum works great, though. I'll
> be interested to try liquid emulsion on it, after hearing about your
> experience.

The alkalinity is a non-issue to me. My printing emulsions are set
somewhat acidic. But a bit of alkali from paper would not harm because
I was thinking about adjusting the pH a bit higher in a later part of
the emulsion making process. So I didn't bother to check what the
effect was like.

Did you have to make your sensitizer (cyano or gum) thicker than usual
to suit this paper? (or did feel the advantage of doing so?)

> I just really wonder what the sizing agent they use is. It feels like
> something akin to glut. An added benefit--it doesn't stink.

Before I sized Rives and Magnani with 3% gelatin sol hardened with
glut. Sizing made the surface nice, smooth, and less absorbent but the
test prints didn't look as nicely as this time for some reason. By
the way my emulsion also contains glut-hardened gelatin and it might
be that the first coat acted somewhat like sizing. (If the emulsion
weren't hardened enough, second coat c/would melt the older coat...)

--
Ryuji Suzuki
"You have to realize that junk is not the problem in and of itself.
Junk is the symptom, not the problem."
(Bob Dylan 1971; source: No Direction Home by Robert Shelton)