Re: Ultrafine Clear Film and Epson 2200

Mark Nelson said:
Regarding waiting for negatives to dry. On Pictorico OHP film usng the
Epson Ultrachrome inkset (and I am sure this is also true of other inks and
substrates), You can take UV readings of the negative with a UV
densitometer after
it comes out of the printer and watch the UV density drop over a period of
time—up to a couple of hours or more. It's not just an issue of whether
inks
will smear if you use the negative right away. It is extremely important
that
negatives be "cured" after printing so that the UF densities of the inks
stabilize. Otherwise you are not going to get consistent results when
printing.

This is FASCINATING and I had no idea. Right now I take the neg right out
of the printer and immediately print, as I usually am "on the fly". In
fact, the only ones that get time to cure are the G and B, because the R I
use first. I'm sure I never noticed this because I am not working with a
process that is as exact as pt/pd. Gum is so forgiving--sometimes I forget
to set my stopwatch, get involved at the computer, and lo and behold, I have
no idea how long an image has exposed over or under my 3-6 minute UV range.
That gets taken care of in development, and same for the cyanotype
underlayer.
Chris
Received on Wed Oct 20 06:30:33 2004