Instructors – Eric Luden and Veronica Cotter
Realizing your artistic vision in print often depends on the paper you select. With dozens of choices how do you start the process and what is the best paper for your work? Two of the industry’s most experienced and respected professionals take the guesswork out of selecting a photo printing paper.
In this event, terminology and paper formulations are explained, and the strengths and weaknesses of paper types are explored.
Topics include:
- Inkjet versus digital C prints
- Photo based inkjet papers
- Fine art inkjet papers
- B&W silver gelatin papers
- Archival & presentation issues
- Question and answer
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:05
[music plays]
00:00:40
Eric Luden: Thanks again to everyone for showing up today. We look forward to going in— I’m really going to be here to talk to you about photo papers and how you want to sort of take some of those beautiful files that you’ve created and get them off your computer and printed. So again, my name is Eric Luden. I’m the founder and owner of Digital Silver Imaging and I’m with my good friend Veronica Cotter, who used to be a sales rep for a company called Oriental Photo. Some of you darkroom fiends will remember that great paper. Veronica and I then spent 13 years working together at Ilford Photo, and through the whole sort of transition as a photo company, kind of embracing digital and what happened in that whole area.
00:01:20
And I left Ilford in 2008 and started Digital Silver Imaging, and Veronica is now at one of our favorite paper companies, which is called Hahnemühle. And I’ll let her talk about that in a little bit. As I mentioned before, you know, I think when we were— if you were analog photographer you really had no choice but to print. You know, if you just shot film and looked at film you really had no— Really the end game was making prints. You went to a darkroom or if you were printing color you went off to a photo lab. But you always had a physical object in your hand. And I think the downside of digital is we all become a little overwhelmed. We can take so many more pictures. And our hard drives store more and more space, that sometimes when I talk to people about getting prints made they’re like, they just feel intimidated, like, I don’t know what to print.
00:02:10
So really our goal today is not a therapy session in helping you print more, but really just to talk about the joys and the beauty of printing, and why it can help you sort of make that final decision. You know, when we look at at images on our screens, or certainly on an iPhone that are impossible to calibrate, they always look pretty good. You know, making that final choice to get something printed is hugely important. So, I wanted to kind of talk a little about the evolution of what happened with printing, and why I think that it’s changed a little bit. So certainly kind of into the 90s and early 2000s, you know, as we got digital cameras, we know that printing really slowed down. Most people were, you know, trying to invest in maybe a home color printer, or they were sending things off to like Snapfish or something to try to make prints
00:03:01
And certainly the evolution of Canon and Epson inkjet printers, and some HPs, and some of the others out there, home printing certainly picked up and made it easier for people to start making prints at home, so that they could actually start looking at prints again. Because really when you hold a physical object in your hand and look at kind of what you’ve done, it’s a much— to me it’s a far more enjoyable experience then a whole bunch of people huddled around a monitor. You know, take the experience of going to a gallery show, or going into a coffee shop that has really nice photographs on the wall. You know, looking at prints is just a— it’s like a group experience, it’s just a far better way to enjoy looking at images.
00:03:43
So one of the things that, you know, that certainly happened for a lot of people is that whether they were printing in black and white or color, is that they were sending their prints off to photo labs that were using either Kodak or Fuji paper. And certainly one of the problems with photo printing is the archivability and kind of the longevity of, you know, these color print papers. And you know, you can all attest to pulling out some color prints from your— from a drawer and noticing the colors have shifted, they’ve faded, they’ve lost contrast over time. And— we have a paper on our website about, kind of, longevity. And both Fuji and Kodak, in their information, talk about like 12 to 18 years at the most, in some cases less, that you will begin to see some fading or shifting in colors.
00:04:36
And with the advent of the, kind of, the better inkjet printers at home, like the Canons and the Epsons for sure, their new— you know, their pigmented archival inks and, with the right combination of paper, can give you a much longer lasting print that is, you know, probably has a better color gamut to be honest with you, because you’re dealing with sort of a legacy technology. If you think of photo papers and photo chemicals, there’s not a lot of R&D going into that material at all. It’s just kind of, it is what it is. But companies like Hahnemühle and Epson and Canon are constantly improving papers and inks and printers. So that’s really where the opportunities lie. So if you’re sending your, you know, your files off to photo labs, you know, and getting a whole bunch of smaller prints to make some evaluations, that’s fine. But I would encourage you, when you go to make more prints that you want to print and hang up on your wall, or frame or give to people, or if you’re in a show, it’s really wise to sort of think about how long is this gonna last. What’s the archivalness of my of the paper and printer that I’m using?
00:05:37
You know, so in terms of like that whole sort of photo-based thing, I think what would be good is to sort of— I want to turn it over to Veronica here as we sort of move into the different paper options. Because if you’re used to sort of printing in a darkroom or sending things off, you know, you’re used to a photo-based, resin-coated paper. And, you know, with Hahnemühle, what’s really great is they offer a great range of photo papers, and fine art papers, that depending on the application, we want to try to help you select the best paper for your application. So again, I turn it over to Veronica Cotter and she’ll talk a little bit about the various papers and applications and things like that.
00:6:17
Veronica Cotter: Well, and first I want to thank Eric and Andrea for inviting me to join them. I think Eric alluded to it: we, the three of us have quite a history. We’ve known each other for close to 40 years. And what’s that expression? No friend like an old friend. So when they asked me to join them, I thought, Well yeah, it’s hanging out with my friends and talking about printing and papers. And Eric, you mentioned something about the experience of being at a gallery and looking at images and that reminded me, a few years ago I did an event, with a— it was a vendor event for a dealer in Northern California, and Hanhamühle had partnered with Canon to make prints for people and a young guy came in and he was kind of trying to figure out what was going on, so I explained it to him.
00:07:08
And I said, Do you have an image we can print for you? Just email it to us. And he looked at— you know he’s looking through his phone, he goes, Yeah I guess this one will work and we printed it for him. It was like he had never seen that image before. He started to tell me the whole story behind it, Oh, we were on vacation. It was the start of the day. We went and had breakfast and we went for a hike and this is what we saw. And I like to think that it was actually holding that print in his hand that had this influence on him and the recall of the details of his trip. So I am all about the power of the print. And in that presentation at the start of this, I copied ideas around images, and I think two stories around images are extremely fascinating and compelling. Okay, so back to what you asked me about— Yes, Andrea.
00:08:05
Andrea Zocchi: So just before we really get into this, I just wanted to mention, too: we’ve already had a couple of questions in the chat. So, if you have questions, please put them in the Q&A. And both to Tom and Michael, we’ll get to both of your questions, so don’t worry about that. And then after the presentations we’re going to talk a little bit about papers first, correct? And then we’re going to— we can answer those specific questions that you had after the presentations. So sit tight and we will get to those questions. And I just wanted to throw that out there, that’s what I wanted to add.
00:08:39
Veronica Cotter: Thank you, Andrea. So photo versus fine art. For those of you that go back to the darkroom days, we refer to the photo papers, as RC papers. They don’t have the same longevity as the fine art papers. They’re definitely more of a price point paper. But there’s definitely a place for those papers. Say you’re new to printing and you’re really trying to sort out just looking at image on paper. It’s a great option for that.
00:09:08
Veronica Cotter: You also have to look at where, if you’re involved in some type of exhibit, where are the prints going to be displayed? A few times I’ve talked to people who got some of their first shows at a coffee shop, or their hair salon, so there’s some environmental factors that will definitely impact the image. So you don’t necessarily want to go with a more expensive fine art paper. So a photo paper is the perfect choice. And the best example I can think of, on the East Coast, in New York, you’ve had many years of Photoville.
00:09:46
Veronica Cotter: We had it two years ago. And if you’ve not seen it, they turn shipping containers into exhibit gallery space, which is— it’s a remarkable idea. Once again, it has some exposure to elements, so you don’t want to go to the expense, especially when you have these big long prints, of putting them on 100% cotton paper, or an alpha cellulose paper. So something like the Photo Pearl, which is a 310 gsm [ed: grams per square meter], so it’s got a great heft, and it has a beautiful surface. It’s one of my papers, it’s on my short— my short long list of favorite papers. That’s when it makes sense to use a photo paper.
00:10:34
Andrea Zocchi: Veronica? Can I ask, can I ask a quick question? So you called the Photo Pearl an RC paper. What is an RC paper, and how is that different than what you’re calling a fine art paper?
00:10:48
Veronica Cotter: So it’s a resin coated paper or I think some people have referred to them as plastic papers. They just don’t have the same base and they don’t have the same coatings. When you switch over to our fine art papers, we use cotton alpha cellulose, which is a refined wood pulp, and we also use fibers, so bamboo, agave and hemp. And then we actually have kind of the next step up in coatings for those papers. And then when I say longevity, so fine art papers with pigment inks—and I think that was one of the questions—with pigment inks, it’s 100-years plus. RC papers, it’s that whole thing: how is it being displayed? I think you said 10 to 12 years. I think that’s kind of a— our photo range my go a bit higher, but it’s— once again depends on how it’s stored, displayed, etc.
00:11:54
Andrea Zocchi: Right, and I think that the opposite of a pigment ink is a dye, right? So there are lots of dye printers and dye sublimation printers, and dyes don’t have the longevity of pigments by a long shot.
00:12:11
Veronica Cotter: Right, yep.
00:12:13
Andrea Zocchi: The dyes, it depends, and that’s also when Eric was talking about. Traditional color photo papers, like the Kodak and the Fuji, those papers, actually, even though they use silver to develop the papers, they couple to a dye, which produces the color. And that dye is very sensitive to fading, especially when exposed to UV light.
00:12:37
Eric Luden: I just want to jump in on on sort of follow up on Veronica’s comment. You know, we kind of approach things from an application standpoint, like Veronica said. And we have printed multiple shows as part of Photoville, and it is really the only paper we ever use is Hahnemühle Photo Pearl. It stands well to the, you know, the elements inside of the shipping containers, but the— You know, I was just holding up a print here. I mean the quality and the surface really are beautiful. But the durability and the economics of it are perfect for that kind of application. And I will also read it reiterate what Veronica says, whether you’re printing through us or at home, you know, that’s a great go to paper for printing out a bunch of small prints to make some final determinations.
00:13:23
Veronica Cotter: Well, and that paper, Eric, in particular is very, very popular in the school market. We sell 11 x 17, 13 x 19, 8.5 x 11, all day long into photo programs. It’s just, it’s a great paper. And the other wonderful— there are many wonderful things about digital, and I still equally love analog, is that you can print both color and black and white images on the same paper, and I always— I always stress to people, if you look at one of our swatch books you may see the David Lynch image on the Photo Rag Baryta, so I think the natural tendency is to pigeonhole it as a black and white paper, but I have seen stunning color images on that same paper. So that’s—going back now to the Photo Pearl—that’s why it’s a terrific choice and option for students.
00:14:31
Eric Luden: Sorry Veronica, do you want to talk a little more about some of the other papers in the range that you guys have? You know, in terms of your, you know, I think if we’re going to delve into papers on your side, I think we should just talk a little more about— from, if you’re not printing photo, you know, then you know, then people— then our questions, then become to people, What have you printed on before? Do you like a— Are you a glossy, semi glossy, or are you more of a matte— you know, printing matte? And I will say that there is no right or wrong. It really comes down to a personal preference.
00:15:02
Veronica Cotter: Absolutely.
00:15:04
Eric Luden: So do you want to talk a little bit about kind of the range of fine art papers, both in the semi gloss and the matte range that you guys offer?
00:15:13
Veronica Cotter: Okay, here we go. I mean someone’s probably gonna have to cut me off, because I could talk about papers for the next two hours. When you look—and I think Andrea put the link to our website in —when you look at the fine art category, it breaks down into the Natural Line: matte fine art smooth, matte fine art textured, glossy fine art and then canvas. So within each range there are a series of papers. The Natural Line, which is the newest, consists of the bamboo, agave and hemp. They are all sustainably sourced fibers and we work with suppliers that don’t use pesticides. So the Bamboo is 90-percent Bamboo, 10-percent cotton. Hemp is 60-40. And the agave is 70-30. The percentage of cotton that’s in there— So when we make paper, as it’s coming off the coding machines the sides get trimmed off. So they repulp that cotton, and that’s the cotton that goes into those papers.
00:16:21
Veronica Cotter: They’re all warmer toned papers. The bamboo is the warmest of the three. The agave and the hemp have the same “white point” or “base tint.” But the agave has the most texture. And I’ll talk a little bit about texture in the context of agave, and then a bit more with the textured range. I thought coming from darkroom into digital that texture would soften the image. It does the exact opposite, it gives it a lot of depth and dimension. And the agave, I’ve had a number of people tell me that it reproduces blacks beautifully, that it has a great dMax [ed: maximum density], so that’s the, that’s the natural range. I will also tell you that 5-percent of the proceeds from the natural range, both on the digital fine art side and then the traditional fine art side, so traditional with sketching, watercolor sketch pads, etc, 5-percent go to fund both regional and international programs, all environmentally focused. For instance, we support a program for baby elephants in Kenya, and to plant trees to stop mudslides in Colombia. So it’s— they’re beautiful papers. I know that DSI uses a few of them, correct Eric?
00:17:49
Eric Luden: Yep, and I was just going to pull those out— oh, am I on mute? No. So we—
00:17:53
Veronica Cotter: And there’s something about a warm-tone paper that works really well.
00:17:58
Eric Luden: That’s the Bamboo. And that’s the Agave. Bamboo is a little bit smoother. But you can also see that the bottom one is the Bamboo, is— uh, trying to get that into the view there. Little bit warmer than the Agave. They’re both really beautiful matte papers.
00:18:13
Veronica Cotter: And warmer papers are great for skin tones, but I’ve seen a variety of subject matter and warmer papers. But it really goes back to what Eric was talking about, personal preference. It’s an aesthetic choice. So then we go into the smooth papers, Photo Rag. Photo Rag is available in a 188, a 308 and a 500. And the Photo Rag 308 is the most popular paper across all brands worldwide. And anytime you see Photo Rag in the name of any of our papers, you’ll see that it’s trademarked. It indicates that it’s 100-percent cotton paper.
00:18:54
Veronica Cotter: And there are variations. So then there’s Photo Rag Ultra Smooth, there’s Photo Rag Bright White. And then there’s a paper in there that often gets overlooked, it’s the rice paper. And it’s 100 gsm. It is not a traditional rice paper in that it doesn’t have the embedded fibers, but it is translucent and it has a really good heft to it. You can lay a lot of ink down on it, it won’t buckle. I know people that fold it, crease it, stitch it for a variety of applications. So as you’re looking at a swatch book or thinking about papers, I know photographers that use rice paper for books. We’ve used it to create window shades in our mud porch. Decorative lampshades. It really is— has a number of creative applications. Also in the matte smooth range, we have two double-sided papers, Photo Rag Duo and Book & Album.
00:19:57
Veronica Cotter: The difference between the two, Book & Album is a grain-specific paper, so the grain of the paper goes in with the binding of the book. The textured range— so once again I want to, I want to stress this point that textured papers, I used to think, would
soften the image. But there is something about that texture that, when you see the print, it kind of draws your eye in and you just want to get closer and look at the details in those images. So in that range there’s the William Turner which, by far, has the most texture. And William Turner comes in a 190 and a 310. Last year I did a presentation with Canon, actually, and one of the tech reps at Canon absolutely loves the William Turner. We’ve actually renamed it the Dave Thompson paper, because he is such a big fan of the paper. So I put them on the spot, I said, Dave, how would you describe the paper?
00:20:59
Veronica Cotter: And he thought for a minute, he said, Handmade. And it really does feel and have that look of a handmade paper. Then another one of my favorites is the Torchon. The Torchon has a bigger pattern to it, but it creates a beautiful border for the image, so most people print with a border so that that texture of the paper really complements the image. There’s Albrecht Durer, there’s German Etching and Museum Etching, and I would say of all of them the German Etching and Museum Etching have the most subtle or refined texture. It’s still there but probably, as I said, the most subtle of all of them. And of all of them, the Museum Etching is the heaviest at 350. So now, Eric, I’m going to put you on the spot. You print with a texture paper correct.
00:22:00
Veronica Cotter: Eric you’re on mute.
00:22:02
Eric Luden: Thank you. Yep, yeah, so we do print with a variety of the Hahnemühle papers, which we can show you a little bit later on our website. Or Andrea maybe you could post a link to our color print page, our inkjet print page so that they can see that. Yeah, so we, you know, we use the Museum Etching a lot. If people want more of a texture— and what we love about the Museum Etching too is that it’s a 350 gsm. So for those of you wondering what that gsm stands for, it’s “grams per square meter,” and basically it’s just referring to the weight of the paper. So if you see, you know, the 188 in the Photo Rag, that’s going to be a fairly thin and lighter weight paper, and it’s a little less expensive.
00:22:45
Eric Luden: The 308 is obviously heavier. The 350 gsm in the museum etching is a really nice, heavy weight, premium fine art paper that we, you know, that’s if somebody says, I want a little more texture, that’s what we go to. Or now that with the natural line out now we’re recommending the Agave. So those are, those are a couple.
00:23:06
Veronica Cotter: And— I’m sorry go ahead.
00:23:07
Eric Luden: So I was gonna say to people, you know, I’ll have Veronica speak to this from their side in terms of offering this. You know, obviously people say, I don’t know what the print on. I don’t have a home printer. What do I do? So at Digital Silver Imaging, one of the things that we offer is a print sample promotion. And so you can send us— you upload one file to our website. You can select three different papers and get three 8.5 x 11 prints that we print them full frame, we don’t crop your image, And we also don’t adjust the image on our side. Because we want two things: number one, we want you to see your file printed on three different papers.
00:23:44
Eric Luden: So I recommend to people, if you’re trying for the first time, maybe you try the Photo Pearl. And then you pick one of their lovely fine art semi gloss papers, which Veronica will talk about next, and then one of them and then one of the matte papers. And so you get that whole thing for $45 which includes shipping. But if you are printing at home, Hahnemühle puts together a few great sample packs that have a few sheets of each paper in there, that you can get from your favorite photo dealer. So I don’t know if you want to talk about those different sample packs that you guys offer, Veronica.
00:24:16
Veronica Cotter: We have— there are two options, 8.5 x 11 and 13 x 19. And there’s one for each range. So I talked about the Natural range, so there’s a corresponding sample pack, the Matte FineArt Smooth corresponding sample pack, and same for the textured and the glossy. As I mentioned, 8.5 x 11 and 13 x 19. Two sheets of each and the great thing is they’re all marked on the back, so they have the name of the paper. So we always recommend taking one or two images, printing them out, and put them up in different lighting conditions, look at them at different times of the day. And look at them over the course of a couple of days. Your mood may change significantly and one or two may really resonate with you, and that becomes then your paper of choice for that particular image or that particular series. The—
00:25:12
Veronica Cotter: And I can’t say that I have a preference for 8.5 x 11 or 13 x 19, although with the 13 x 19, what we what we do here at home is that we’ll print six different images. We’ll do a portrait, we’ll do a couple black and whites and then we’ll do one with really vivid colors. So with one piece of paper you’re looking at multiple images. And if that doesn’t work for that particular image, at least, you have that reference for the next one.
00:25:43
Veronica Cotter: And, and when I do presentations in person, I have seven prints, one image on different papers. And I’ll show someone, say, the Photo Rag 308, because that’s always a good place to start. And they’ll look at it, they’ll pass it around, and we’ll talk about the characteristics of the paper. And you can see people beginning to think; This is the paper for me. And then I will pull out something, that same image on William Turner and— same process. And then I’ll usually go with the Photo Rag Metallic, just because it is so different.
00:26:23
Veronica Cotter: And eventually what they see is that, I get it. It’s not necessarily the same paper for every image, and I really need to look at a couple. And also, the hardest question, and I’m sure you guys get this as well, someone will show me an image and they’ll want me to tell them which paper. I’m always more than willing to give suggestions, but it’s such a personal aesthetic that the print promotion that DSI has really is the perfect way to to look at your image on paper.
00:26:59
Andrea Zocchi: Veronica, so the thing that I’m kind of intuiting from a lot of the questions and what’s coming up in the chat, that people are a little overwhelmed by, you know, the the sheer quantity of papers and how to select them. But I know that kind of based on the way that, you know— and I’ve posted links to Hahnemühle again, and to our inkjet page. We also do silver gelatin printing, I think eric’s going to touch on that too.
00:27:28
Andrea Zocchi: But I think that a way, maybe for people who are a little overwhelmed, is if they’re on the Hahnemühle site that perhaps they should also look at the way you’ve categorized your papers, just like we talked about sooner. So perhaps if it’s for an exhibition that’s hanging in a gallery you would want to consider a fine art paper. Like you were talking about earlier, if it’s for an area that might have some adverse atmospheric conditions, you might want to look at an RC paper. So I think by looking at the site and kind of narrowing it down by category, that’s a good way to proceed. And also considering what color the paper base is, because they vary considerably.
00:28:17
Veronica Cotter: Well, and that’s the thing— and this is what we call a media sampler. So if you went to a camera store you’d see there’s a
6 x 8 printed swatch book with all the papers. These are all those same papers, but what I like about this is that it’s truly all about the paper. And you can fan it out. Some people, you know, unscrew it and lay the papers out. And you really begin to identify— Andrea, to your point, the differences in base tint, texture and even weight, and you really begin to think about how it all kind of interacts with your image. They’re all really important considerations. And, um, okay, I am willing; if you send me an email, with your mailing address, I’ll send you one of these. And as I said, it’s really a great way, and also what I like about these—
00:29:11
Veronica Cotter: So if you’re printing yourself, obviously you can look at papers, as I said. Base tint, texture and weight. But also when you’re working with Eric and his group, you can have that conversation based on those same characteristics. If you’re outside the US, I will try and link you with one of our selling companies. But if you send me your your name and mailing address— and also we’re waiting for a resupply from the mail, so it may take a little while, but I will get it to you.
00:29:48
Andrea Zocchi: So Veronica, how do you want me to handle that? You want me to—
00:29:52
Veronica Cotter: Put my email in there, please, Andrea.
00:29:54
Andrea Zocchi: In the chat?
00:29:56
Veronica Cotter: Yep, yeah.
00:29:57
Andrea Zocchi: Okay, here goes.
00:30:01
Veronica Cotter: So we talked about, and—
00:30:04
Eric Luden: Veronica, I just want to make sure that that is your current email, because I know there were some switches in emails, right?
00:30:09
Eric Luden: Veronica dot— Veronica at H-A-H-N-E-M-U-E-H-L-E dot com.
00:30:15
Eric Luden: That’s it, great, yep. Thank you.
00:30:17
Veronica Cotter: So, think about it, now we’ve talked about natural, we’ve talked about smooth, we’ve talked about texture. Now we’re going to go on to glossy. And this range has the most papers. There is the Fine Art Pearl, there is the Baryta Satin. The Baryta Satin is a slightly warmer base tint. I often refer to the Baryta Satin as kind of the glossy version of Bamboo. And the Baryta Satin, it’s more of a sheen than a shine.
00:30:50
Veronica Cotter: The Photo Rag Satin is a very interesting paper. So it’s the only paper in the range that takes the matte back inks. So where the ink goes down you have a little bit of a sheen. Where there’s no ink it has more of a matte characteristic. It’s really interesting. It’s kind of a fascinating paper.
00:31:10
Veronica Cotter: Photo Rag Baryta, one of my all time favorites, and Photo Rag Baryta is one of those papers that if someone is transitioning from darkroom to digital, or they’re pulling out their archive of negs and looking for some recommendations of something that looks similar to a silver gelatin print,I usually start with Photo Rag Baryta. It’s— When you look on the website it describes it as a high gloss. I don’t think it’s a high gloss, I think it’s more like what we would refer to as an air dried gloss. It’s a 315 gsm and it’s got a little bit of texture. And, as I said, air dried gloss. Photo Rag Pearl, Photo Rag so it’s 100-percent cotton. Slightly warmer, another paper that I recommend. The FineArt Baryta. So if you compare that to the Photo Rag Baryta, it has a little more gloss, a little more texture and it’s a cooler base tint. And it’s a 325 gsm.
00:32:14
Veronica Cotter: Then, our Photo Rag Metallic, which we introduced a few years ago. It is a stunning, stunning paper. Usually, when I say metallic to people, they’re thinking polyester-based, high gloss, this is not that paper. It’s 100-percent cotton. It has a beautiful proprietary metallic pigment coding. And it’s a 340 gsm, so it has a really good heft. Is that what you have there, Eric? It is beautiful paper. And it reproduces black and white and color beautifully. I was skeptical coming from, you know, 25-plus years of black and white, but it does a really good job with black and white.
00:33:00
Veronica Cotter: It’s stunning. And then the final paper in that range is the Baryta FB, which is the heaviest at 350. It has the coolest base tint and the most gloss. And then we have— we have canvas. So Cézanne–
00:33:21
Veronica Cotter: Gosh, I’m having a brain fade. We have— we actually have a Metallic canvas. Goya and a few others. All on the website. I think we’re really focused on papers today.
00:33:33
Eric Luden: Yep.
00:33:34
Veronica Cotter: And Eric, since we’re talking about papers, do we want to talk about protective spray?
00:33:38
Eric Luden: Yeah, I wanted to take a moment to talk a little bit about the silver gelatin process for black and white, because— Which is, so you know, one of the reasons I joined Ilford was because I was passionate black and white photographer way back in the day and in the mid 90s. And the reason— it was really the same reason that I decided to start Digital Silver Imaging in 2008. So the— You know, as digital evolved, there, if you were shooting digitally there weren’t a lot of easy ways to make real black and white prints anymore if you were to transition from film to digital. There were some solutions.
00:34:13
Eric Luden: One of the biggest problems was that a lot of labs were then printing black and white photos on color C-print paper, Fuji or Kodak, and a huge problem with that is that there’s always a color cast because, again, it’s a color process and you’re trying to create a black and white image using color dyes and color papers.
00:34:32
Eric Luden: So Ilford in 2006, figured out how to make a paper that was responsive to these big machines called laser enlargers. You may have heard of a Lambda or Lightjet, or you may have heard the term Digital C-print. They all expose photosensitive color papers with a laser, and then it’s processed in color chemistry. And in 2006, Ilford figured out a way to actually take one of their resin coated papers, initially, and coat it with a sort of, a more— Because the lasers, are very bright. They’re not like your typical, you know, Beseler or Omega enlarger. So they made a resin coated paper that could actually be printed, exposed in a laser enlarger and then processed in traditional black and white chemicals. So that the result, you know, was a resin coated— as you can tell it’s plastic base, right? RC print. but the beauty was that it was completely neutral in image tone. And there was no color cast at all.
00:35:32
Eric Luden: And about a year or so after that all the artists started saying, Well, if you can coat a resin coated paper, the fine art world really wanted something on fiber. So again, it took them a little while in R&D, but then they produced a fiber based paper. Which is a true silver gelatin Ilford fiber based paper for you old darkroom printers. It’s coated on the old Ilforbrom Gallery base. And so it has a very high silver content. And that still goes through our Lightjet 430 laser enlarger, and then it gets processed in a custom built black and white fiber processor. So I’ll give you a little spin here of our lab.
00:36:11
Eric Luden: So I can turn this camera slowly, slowly, around here. And there’s our darkroom sink over there. And that big gray machine is a 52-inch custom-built black and white paper processor. So that it has developer, fixer, and a total archival wash process.
00:36:28
Eric Luden: I’ll just keep going a little bit so you get a little quick tour of the Digital Silver Imaging workspace, and our lab, and all the things that we do here. But the beauty, then, is for people who are classic— really want a true black and white classic print, you can get a silver gelatin, air dried gloss, fiber print. We can use selenium toning, which I did a whole bunch of prints the other day in the sink, You can selenium tone your prints in real chemical. So again, this is— and it’s an additional cost, but we run it through selenium toning. Or we use a really nice, a really beautiful toner from Fotospeed. And it’s a sepia, so hopefully you can kind of get a little understanding of that, but again this is not—
00:37:12
Andrea Zocchi: Back up a little bit, Eric. Back the print up a little bit. There you go.
00:37:14
Eric Luden: Yeah so it’s um— But, again, this is run through chemicals, so it actually tones the base of the paper as well. So again, it’s another option, you know, for purists. And we have a lot of clients that really want a true silver gelatin print for their black and white papers. We have that as an option. And it just makes a
— Again, museums, galleries and people who have had dark room experience get that option.
00:37:46
Eric Luden: And, but that’s not to say we won’t print black and white on some of the fine Hahnemühle papers. You know, we recognize there’s a limited— there’s only one surface for the fiber. And if you’re a diehard matte person, or you know, want to see something with a different textures or different look, you know, we will certainly print your black and white on any one of those fine art papers that we just discussed.
00:38:11
Eric Luden: And then in terms of like— Sorry, Veronica was going to talk a little bit about how to protect prints. And I think that that’s an important discussion because a lot of people ask, Okay, so now I printed it, how do I protect it? Do I need to frame it? What if I don’t frame it? What if I just want to mount it and put it on the wall? So I know that Hahnemühle makes some protective coatings that Veronica can talk about, that we can apply here in the lab for you.
00:38:36
Veronica Cotter: And I just wanted to say, boy, there is nothing like holding a silver gelatin fiber base print in your hand. I mean, we still have a darkroom here at home, and I think it underscores what a remarkable time it is to be involved with image making. I mean— Eric, you know this, Ilford’s film sales are up and it’s the, you know, under-30 demographic that have discovered film. So do they choose to go in the darkroom? Maybe they’re scanning and doing digital output. You know, for those that have an archive of negs, maybe they have access to a darkroom, maybe they don’t. But the bottom line is, it is a wonderful time to be involved in image making.
00:39:22
Veronica Cotter: And Eric brought up when to use, why to use a protective spray. And this is purely my opinion. So if a print is going to go behind glass in a frame, you don’t necessarily have to to spray it. But if it’s going to be handled— say that you have a portfolio of prints and you’re going to portfolio reviews. You’d like to think that most people are going to have gloves on. But if not, there’s a chance that they’re going to be handled quite a bit.
00:39:55
Veronica Cotter: With textured papers, because, especially with the William Turner, it’s a highly textured paper, so by spraying it, it almost locks the the fibers into place. Let your print sit for 24 hours before you spray it. And there are as many methods of spraying as you can think of. So I know a few people that go north, then they go south, and then they go diagonal. But if you look at YouTube, there are a number of videos that kind of show different processes. You know, this way, that way, then across that way. Usually, you know, two to three passes should work. And as Eric mentioned, Hahnemühle does have a protective spray that works quite well and provides extra UV protection. We’re actually in the process now of trying to really determine how many extra years— I’ve heard 30 years of UV protection. But I’m sure once we have the results of those tests that they’ll post it on our website. And Eric—
00:41:07
Andrea Zocchi: Veronica?
00:41:09
Veronica Cotter: Yes.
00:41:10
Andrea Zocchi: I have a question how do the sprays— and they come in a variety of types and surface types, correct?
00:41:18
Veronica Cotter: Yes, and— no, no, no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, the varnish does. The spray just comes in one type. And I think I know where you’re going. It doesn’t affect the the texture. It doesn’t change it at all.
00:41:33
Andrea Zocchi: Okay. And my other question is, does it influence the look of the print at all?
00:41:39
Eric Luden: A little bit it. It does, I would say, on the semi gloss papers, it has, like, no apparent difference. On the matte, just slightly. And what we show some people, if you put it on the matte, it actually punches up the the the dMax just slightly. But it’s not a significantly noticeable difference, but it’s one that, you know, I tell people, you know, when you rub your finger across you can’t tell it’s on there but it does, you know, add a little protection against fingerprints. And it does add a nice, as Veronica said, it sounds like they’re doing some tests, but it does add additional UV protection.
00:42:14
Eric Luden: So if you’re, you know, if you’re someone who doesn’t want to put something in a frame and likes to sort of float mount a print] on the wall, without without glass and all that stuff, it’s really a nice way to enhance and protect the print. Because, especially if you’ve gone through and listened to us talking today about the variety of papers, and if you frame it and put it behind glass, you’re kind of then one step removed from all the kind of considerations you’ve put into selecting the appropriate paper. So if you, you know, if you mount it— which we offer, we offer a variety of mounting options. And then we, we spray it for you. You can put that right up on the wall and not have to worry about it’s, you know— how long it’s going to last because you’ve added that you know 30 plus years of UV protection.
00:43:00
Veronica Cotter: Well, and Eric you bring up a good point. The papers are just such a beautiful variety and I think you want, you want people to have the kind of— that interaction with the image and the paper. And more and more I’m seeing some really creative and clever options to how people will display work. A few years ago with the Leica gallery here in Los Angeles, an artist had– they were pretty much floor to ceiling prints. And they were on a— I think it was the William Turner, one of the texture papers. And she used a clip system. And it was interesting to step back and watch how people engage the work. And to your point, people are floating images, which reminds me, I forgot to mention, that three of the Hahnemühle papers are available, with a deckle edge, or a torn edge, so that’s something that you definitely want to float.
00:44:06
Eric Luden: So I guess what I want to do, just quickly since we’re talking about printing and stuff, I’m going to share my screen for one second here. I just want to show people— want to remind you about, you know, if you’re looking to work with a lab, that we offer the print sample promotion. And if you’re printing at home, you know, talk to your favorite— wherever you’re buying your inkjet papers and or, you know, your camera store whatever, you definitely want to check out these sample packs from Hahnemühle. So I’m just going to share my screen here.
00:44:42
Eric Luden: So this is the Digital Silver Imaging site. And we are going to be offering a discount on all of our prints to everybody on this webinar today. It’s a 15% discount which is good through— I think the 26th is what we did? So, when you go there, you want to order through our value print page, and through our value print page you can get all the papers that we offer, both inkjet and silver gelatin. The promotion is on this section of our website, the prints only. We just didn’t want to complicate it with the other options For silver gelation mounting and framing and inkjet printers with mounting and framing. But you want to really focus on the prints only option here.
00:45:26
Eric Luden: And then, at the bottom here is the link to our print sample promotion that we talked about. The black and white, just so you know, it comes with one photo Pearl and one of the gloss prints. And on the inkjet papers you get to pick the three. See, that’s why there’s an image of three prints. And we do label the back of each paper. We have a little Avery labels we stick on the back, so it makes it easy to identify which paper you’ve selected. And I just want to remind you, if you send us a square image, we will print it square on the piece of paper. If you send a panoramic we’re going to print the whole thing. We do not crop anything on these and as I pointed out earlier, we do not make any adjustments on these. And here’s the reason why: I really— our goal is to have you work in the calibrate— you know, to try to get your monitors calibrated and looking right.
00:46:15
Eric Luden: If our prints come back and look too dark or too bright compared to your screen, there’s a good chance you’re out of calibration. And I would recommend either going to our website or onto the VII Insider website and watch our video that we did on monitor calibration. Because that’s a huge part of this process. Whether you’re printing at home or whether you’re printing from us, or some other lab, you really want to start doing printing I highly highly highly recommend that you calibrate your monitor.
00:46:41
Eric Luden: So that’s about our website, and again you’ll get a follow up email here from VII with the special promotion for printing. So I’d love to sort of follow up on all the questions. I saw one in here about Jon Cone and his interesting black and white inkjet system, which is, you know, Jon’s a great inventor and I think he’s like a scientist at heart.
00:47:08
Eric Luden: And if you are a person who really likes the total control and wants to do black and white printing, I would say it’s the best option if you are committed to doing printing at home. To do black and white prints, it’s a phenomenal— it really is a phenomenal system. It means you have to have a dedicated printer. That will void any warranty on it, because you have to sort of rip out the heads that are in there and put in his system. And— but I do believe it’s a good system. It just requires a little more babysitting than your normal, you know, than say a straight out of the box Canon or Epson printer. So again, if you’re a person who’s going to print it home and focus on black and white, if that’s the way you want to go, that’s fine. I would encourage you to make one of our silver prints, you know, to try our sample promotion, so you have something to compare it to. What does a Jon Cone print look like compared to a true Digital Silver Imaging fiber print.
00:48:09
Veronica Cotter: Well, and Eric, I’ve met people over the years that have the, I guess the luxury of having two printers, or maybe they’ve upgraded to a newer version of a printer and then will sometimes take that older printer and dedicate it to the Piezography. But they are beautiful prints. I have seen them over the years and they are really beautiful prints.
00:48:35
Eric Luden: Andrea, do you want to kind of walk us through questions? I did see another one in there— But why don’t you go ahead and see what we can help answer.
00:48:45
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah, so I’m just going to try to go through these in order, as people asked them. So we had a question about sugar cane paper. Was that something that Hahnemühle made at one time, Veronica?
00:49:01
Veronica Cotter: Yes, um, I think it’s not available in cut sheets. When I started eight years ago it was just starting to kind of be phased out. I think it would be a nice addition to the natural line. I think we still have some in rolls. If you send me a note— if you’re truly interested in getting some just send me a note and I’ll let you know. There are no cut sheets and we have limited availability in rolls. We had a rough and a smooth version.
00:49:34
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah, so we have a really interesting question from Abdullah in Sarajevo, who is a photo student. And they don’t teach— he’s not getting taught about printing and they outsource their work to labs, but he says their labs aren’t knowledgeable. And what would you do in that situation, I think, is the kind of the gist of that question. What would be your guidelines for that?
00:50:06
Eric Luden: I would, um—
00:50:08
Veronica Cotter: That’s a long conversation.
00:50:11
Eric Luden: I was gonna suggest— yeah, no, I mean one of the things that, you know, we pride ourselves on is we are Hahnemühle’s certified print studio. And, you know, by doing that we work worked at Hahnemühle, did some testing, and got sort of, you know, certified. And I know that Hahnemühle has a great link on their main website of how to find out a certified print studio. And those certified print studios should be knowledgeable of all papers. And obviously Hahnemühle, but there, you know, there may be some other brands that they offer for— if Hahnemühle didn’t have something in the range, whatever. But you know, I would look for one of those labs. So maybe we can— I think Andrea just posted that link.
00:50:50
Andrea Zocchi: I did.
00:50:50
Eric Luden: Did you post that link?
00:50:52
Andrea Zocchi: Yep, yeah.
00:50:54
Eric Luden: And that is a worldwide lab locator.
00:51:00
Andrea Zocchi: Okay. So I have a question, which is, they want to know what kind of print is good for aluminum Dibond. To— I assume that’s to mount on Dibond. What kind of paper is good to mount on Dibond?
00:51:20
Eric Luden: Really, um, Veronica will answer that just because we don’t do a lot of mounting here. But so, we mount our silver prints on to Dibond or aluminum, just so you know. We’re working on a large series of prints right now that, for any of you in the New York area, you want to go to the Whitney museum, we have a large series of prints that are on the wall there from Dawoud Bey, they’re all 48″ x 60″ silver prints. But really any one of, any one of Hahnemühle papers mount absolutely fine to Dibond. We use a very good pH-neutral adhesive. We cold mount them using a, you know, 60-inch wide press. So we have not had any papers not work well. No issues, whether we’re faced mounting a print on to Dibond with acrylic on the front, or whether we’re doing a fine art print that’s then being sprayed. I’ve had no issues with any of their papers.
00:52:16
Andrea Zocchi: So Eric, do you think that environmental factors make any difference in the paper you select? Like for, you know, let’s say it’s going into a very humid environment, as opposed to a dryer environment?
00:52:30
Eric Luden: We get asked that question a lot. I mean, I know some of you want to hang a print in their bathroom or maybe near a— you know, we did a job for a restaurant. And you know, in that case, what we really recommend was face mount, because face mounting encapsulates your print in between a backing material, whether it’s aluminum or Dibond, and then the print literally has an optically clear adhesive on it, and the acrylic goes right up to the front of the print. They’re– it’s a beautiful look. And it does create a sandwich that really kind of helps prevent moisture from getting in and damaging the print. So if it’s super humid, that’s one way to do it. I’ve also seen people just, you know, if you get a print with a frame and put some paper backing on it, that can certainly help as well.
00:53:19
Veronica Cotter: And I was just gonna— And Eric already covered it, face mounting I know that our photo gloss Baryta works really well with face mounting. And it’s the perfect expression, it’s “sandwiched.” And a lot of the time those are the prints that you see in hotels or department stores, etc, where it’s a high traffic situation. But they’re beautiful.
00:53:44
Eric Luden: Yeah, so I’ll just show you this. Give you an idea of what this is actually is. This is how we do proofs for people, and Andrea, can we see that okay?
00:53:52
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah, that looks good.
00:53:53
Eric Luden: So this whole— this is the entire image printed out. So that person can see the whole thing. This was going to be a part of a triptych in a panel of images, right? But the final size was going to be pretty— was going to be, I think 24″ x 36″. So what we do is, we take the image into Photoshop, size at 24″ x 36″ and take a section of it that will fit onto this 13″ x 19″ sheet. So if you’re wondering about colors and detail and is your image going to hold up to a size, you want, we can make a proof for you ahead of time. It’s not expensive, but you get, you know, you get the whole image here. And then a section at 100-percent on this side, and we do that on all our papers, but this happens to be one that we did do face mounting for a person, so for one of our clients. So this is the Hahnemühle photo gloss that we do for a lot for our face mounting clients.
00:54:44
Andrea Zocchi: So I think a proof is good for somebody who’s going to make a larger print and wants to see how it’s going to basically look enlarged and also to kind of check their their calibration and make sure that it’s a good match for the paper and that’s another way to go about it, besides our print sample promotion. So James asked for sampling [inaudible] a portfolio, what type of paper and what size print do you recommend? He says, the images are digital fine art and graphic in nature.
00:55:17
Veronica Cotter: So Andrea can you repeat the first part?
00:55:20
Andrea Zocchi: Sure. So James is putting together a portfolio and he wants to know what type of paper you’d recommend. What size.
00:55:32
Veronica Cotter: A portfolio. I’m going to assume maybe for portfolio reviews, or to show clients, galleries, etc. I’m a big fan of 13″ x 19″. And actually Hahnamüle has— it’s a limited edition, and it comes around every couple of years. This year, it is the Natural papers and the Photo Rag Metallic. And it’s 50 sheets of paper, you get the 50 vellum interleaving sheets, and you get a pair of the cotton gloves, and then you get some certificates of authenticity. It’s a great value for money, but even if you don’t use any of those papers, I’m still going to say 13″ x 19″. It’s a nice size that if you’re saying you’re going— you go to the Palm Springs Photo Festival, or you go to Photolucida in Portland, it’s a nice size. It makes a beautiful presentation. You can move the prints from one side to the other. And also, when you’re not using it for that application, you can just start to stack them and store the work and then mark them, you know appropriately so. 13″ x 19″.
00:56:46
Veronica Cotter: Those papers I mentioned are certainly good options, but I will say you can never go wrong starting with Photo Rag 308. That is, as I said earlier, it’s the most popular paper across all brands worldwide. I think, part of that is it was one of the first digital fine art papers we offered in the late 90s, and people standardized on it. It’s a beautiful paper. My husband’s a photographer and I would say of all the papers he uses, that’s his top go to.
00:57:20
Eric Luden: One of the things, too, about— I’m just going to just chime in, as well, just quickly on the portfolio review side for whoever asked that question. You know people say, Well, I don’t, you know, I want my prints to be big and I don’t know— you know, I don’t want to show people 13 x 19. You know, you could do what we do for our print sample— I mean for our proof, is literally you could make a swatch of the thing to show people, that it would hold up to a 30 x 40, for you, whatever you’re going to print. But, and we’ve often recommend that to people, that you kind of just show people the details and everything does hold up. So you can just do the same thing in Photoshop, make a make a strip, put it on put it down on paper. So that’s another option.
00:58:00
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah, or another option would be to print one actual size, maybe one, and carry it in a tube. So you’re not, you know, burdening yourself with a gigantic box of prints, or portfolio prints.
00:58:17
Veronica Cotter: So—- can I just throw in one other thing? And I know you don’t print this size, but for people that are printing it home, we have photo cards. There’s a 4 x 6 size which, if you look behind me, I’ve started my collection of postcards that people have sent me. But we also an A5 size, which is almost six by eight and that might be a nice option, because you can then, you know, always have it with you. And depending if you’re traveling a distance, can’t pack a 13 x 19, that might be a good option as well.
00:58:55
Eric Luden: Veronica, can you hold up— that is a great thing. Can you hold up that tin again, because this is— Hahnemühle’s one of the only papers— the only companies I know that do this. Not only is the paper really good, but you get this great metal tin to carry your prints around in. It’s awesome.
00:59:10
Veronica Cotter: And the paper in both the 4 x 6 and the A5 size all have the rounded corners. The other nice thing is you can actually print on the back. It’s not coated, so you can’t do an image, but you can— it holds up really well with text. So we’ve started making our own postcards and literally this is a selection of postcards. I just got my first international postcard from the Netherlands and very excited. So that’s my collection back there. And people use them for promo cards. So they will print their website, social media links. And when they do a portfolio review, or if they’re trying to connect with a gallery, or to get work as an intern or assistant, you know, they put a beautiful image on one side and then contact info on the back.
I’ve seen people send out invitations with the larger size, where it’s the image on the front and the details of the show on the back. So, that might be….
01:00:24
Andrea Zocchi: So we’re at the hour mark here, so we’re just going to hustle through a couple more questions here. So Ted asked, “$45 USD includes shipping to Canada?” And I assume Ted’s asking about our print sample promotion for our Digital Silver papers, the DSI digital silver prints. Eric?
01:00:48
Eric Luden: So we can ship that— so the cost of the paper sample promotion is actually $36. And then with first class postage, you know, we add $6 for US. I don’t really off the top of my head know exactly what first class is to Canada. I know that priority mail to Canada, I think, is like $21 which we could mail that way. And you know, first class is, you know, probably somewhere between $10 and
$12. Because they’re 8.5 x 11.
01:01:21
Veronica Cotter: Mm hm. It is.
01:01:23
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah, so Ted, just send us an email and we’ll get you exact rates. So we have another question and I’m going to kind of combine this. But Jeffrey asked about the longevity of matte paper with an all black ink set and varnished. And I think we kind of touched on the varnish, but I just want to say that I posted this earlier. I posted a link, we have a post on our site, a blog post called “How long will my print last?” and I put that link in the chat. And it’s a chart comparing Chromogenic C-prints, and Digital C-prints, and inkjet prints, on fine art, dye prints, and all that in that article. So that tells you how much they last. But I think that just the question here is, I think it’s if you’re using a pigment ink, like from Canon or Epson or HP, on a fine art paper that is acid free, archival, basically about 200 years. And I don’t think— then the varnish is, may help a little bit if it’s got a UV-inhibitor in there. Especially if it’s display. So….
01:02:37
Veronica Cotter: So Andrea, you’re talking varnish, and we do make varnish but that’s for canvas. Or do you mean spray? I know some people are doing creative things with mixed media where, you know, they’ll paint an image and then varnish, so just wanted to—
01:02:55
Andrea Zocchi: Right, so the longevity of your prints is going to kind of depend on each component part. So I know that in painting— painting varnish is— a lot of them will yellow over time. So depending on the kind of varnish you’re using, that might be the issue. So that might be the weakest link in your archival quality of your print. And apropos of sprays, Robert asked, “When do you need to use the spray, which papers?”
01:03:28
Veronica Cotter: Well, and it’s the thing— If it’s going to be handled, I mean with the glossier paper, you know, they tend to fingerprint. So I would say if it’s going to be handled at all, definitely anything in the glossy fine art range— excuse me. And with the textured papers, to kind of lock down those fibers especially if it’s not going to go behind glass, I’d recommend it for textured and then for the smoother matte papers, and I’d consider the Natural Line in that category as well. Once again, if it’s going to be handled, if it’s not behind glass, it’s never a bad thing to spray your prints.
01:04:13
Eric Luden: And I was gonna ask—
01:04:15
Andrea Zocchi: Go ahead, Eric.
01:04:16
Eric Luden: I was gonna— I just was looking at some of the questions and I was going to answer two questions that Ted asked about stuff. One was about Piezo printing and is that a Cone print. Piezo printing is just a technology, so the Piezo print heads are what people are using today in, you know, advanced fine art inkjet printers. And then Ted, your other question is a great one because it’s about papers heights. And if you think about paper sizes, they were kind of all geared originally to 4 x 5 film. You know, 4 x 5, 8 x 10, or 16 x 20.
01:04:48
Eric Luden: All kind of worked really well for that aspect ratio. So, when 35 millimeter came around and became so popular, there really was no photo paper, actually, that was, you know, proportional to— You know, people say, I want an 8 x 10 print. But they send us a 35 millimeter aspect ratio, which is a 2 x 3 ratio. So, in terms of what happened in the printing world and why our inkjet papers are all kind of odd sizes is: that comes out of the tabloid and the magazine printing world. Because that’s where inkjet printer started. So 8.5 x 11, 11 x 17, 13 x 19, Super B. All these different sizes were all driven by that part of the world. And I will say, going back to Veronica’s comment— which is why I’m such a fan of 13 x 19 as a paper size, is that it prints up an image from a 35 millimeter aspect ratio at 12 x 18 with a half inch border all around. So it is, for me, the most ideal paper to print on if you’re a big 35 millimeter shooter.
01:05:46
Veronica Cotter: And it’s big enough, you know. It— t’s just big enough. Especially if you’re doing a portfolio review, for someone to get a real sense of the image and of the work.
01:06:00 –> 01:06:20
Andrea Zocchi: So I have a question here, let’s see— oops, I just lost it. Oh no. From Olga, and if I can interpret her question correctly, she asks that, If an image is presented, you know, not behind glass how long will it last?
01:06:27
Veronica Cotter: Excuse me, excuse me. Fine art paper with pigment inks, we safely say 100 years, but it’s probably closer to the 200 year range. You know and it’s— how is it displayed? How is it stored? But…
01:06:45
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah I think the question, too, again we kind of go back to the spray. If it’s a pigmented print, then having it sprayed is a great idea, especially if it’s not behind glass. Because you know, you don’t want— what you don’t want is somebody flicking, or some particle of liquid to land on that print. And sprays will protect it from that. Because if it’s not sprayed then you’re pretty much toast.
01:07:11
Veronica Cotter: And Charles, Eric and I both put my email in there. Make sure you have the dot between Veronica and Cotter, and that you have the extra E in there as well.
01:07:28
Andrea Zocchi: Getting a lot of questions about sprays. Can the sprays be used on dye prints, or just on pigment prints?
01:07:36
Veronica Cotter: You can use it on both.
01:07:39
Eric Luden: What it won’t work on is anything that— they will not work on a resin-coated base paper. So do not try to spray it on Photo Gloss or Photo Pearl or it won’t help your— it certainly won’t help your digital C-print, your chromogenic print. They are what they are, so it’s only good on the fine art range.
01:08:00
Veronica Cotter: Right, absolutely.
01:08:01
Andrea Zocchi: Jay asked, What’s the advantage of C-print over inkjet? And other than C-prints are very inexpensive, there really is no advantage. Some people like the way C-prints look, but other than that an inkjet printer is a far more superior archival product.
01:08:19
Eric Luden: For color.
01:08:21
Veronica Cotter: For color, right.
01:08:24
Andrea Zocchi: Let’s see. So Jennifer asked— she’s struggling to use heavier papers on her Epson P900. And I think Jennifer, you should refer that to Epson to see if there is a way, and specifically talk to them about weights and tips and—
01:08:45
Eric Luden: Generally, generally— I’m sorry to cut in Andrea. So generally the thicker papers have to be fed, have to be back fed if it’s really thick. Which, there’s a slot in the back of most printers for that. And then you also want to go in and there are some settings with something called a head gap. This is how far the print head is from the paper. And if you’re getting a lot of head strike, meaning that’s hitting the edge of the paper, that is a result of that head gap, so I would— I mean, that’s about as much technology I can give you on it. But I would put the— if you’re still having trouble I reach out to Epson.
01:09:20
Veronica Cotter: Well, and also, Jennifer, I would also offer to put you in touch with our tech application specialist, Travis. Before Canon or Epson launch a printer, they send one to him and his counterpart in Germany. So between the two of them, they create all the profiles. So as Canon or Epson launch a printer, simultaneously you can download the profiles. And I have to say, Travis has figured out every iteration of have issues with printers. He said to me once, and it made sense, Printers are like people, no two are exactly alike. So if you send me a note— if you don’t have any luck with Epson, send me a note and I’ll put you in touch with Travis. And I’m sure he will make some really useful recommendations.
01:10:19
Eric Luden: And I just— One other question I saw come in here, Andrea, was: to get the 15-percent discount on our print-only offer, stay tuned for an email that will come out from VII Insider, and that’ll come out in email from them. I think they’ll go out within the next maybe 48 to 72 hours. I forget how long it takes. you will definitely get an email with that. And then the other question I saw here, from Jane, is about running a piece of paper through a printer more than once. It’s a little tricky, but what you’d have to do is make a template or a paper page size in Photoshop of the paper size you want to do. And then put an image in one section, print it out, and make another— use the same template but put an image in a different section and run it through again so they don’t overlap. That’s the only way you can do it that I’m aware of.
01:11:13
Andrea Zocchi: So— in the chat, Charles says that he got email address correct, but a return came from Hahnemühle with many suggestions on how to get an email through. Confusing.
01:11:25
Veronica Cotter: Hm.
01:11:27
Andrea Zocchi: That’s interesting. Let me repost your email, Veronica. See if that’s the problem here.
01:11:35
Veronica Cotter: Charles, they, um— In Germany, they did some upgrades to the spam filter. So I think it’ll still go through, I’ll just— excuse me, look in that filter. You know what, I’ll also— I’m going to put my phone number in. If you don’t get through just give me a call. I’m based in California, but my phone number links to our corporate office just outside Chicago, so that’s why it’s an 815 number.
01:12:15
Andrea Zocchi: So I think that, um, let’s see if there’s any other questions that we really haven’t touched on. I think we’ve touched on most. Somebody asked if this chat will get saved and I think that that’s a question for David and VII Insider. So I don’t know whether they save the chat or not, but you can always, you know, either contact Digital Silver Imaging or Veronica at Hahnemühle, and we’d be happy to answer any specific questions that you have. So unless— and also questions about how to get the promotion. What you’ll do is you’ll get a promo code. You’ll get a response email, a thank you for attending email, everyone that attended the webinar. And there’ll be a link, hopefully, and a promo code in there. If that doesn’t come through to you, again, you can always just send us an email at [email protected]. And I’ll post that in the chat right now. But that’s pretty easy.
01:13:22
Veronica Cotter: Can I add one thing that I— Once again, you know, the three of us have known each other a long time and we love to talk about photography, photographers, creative applications, and I think it comes down to the importance of the print. And I will tell a story that I tell often. When I was with Oriental— this is probably 1981 at the latest 82, we sponsored the Ansel Adams workshop, so I got to go and Morley Baer was one of the instructors.
01:13:59
Veronica Cotter: And after the workshop they had a little gallery show of instructor work, and you had a chance to buy the work. So at the time I was making less than $10,000 a year. I had almost nothing in my checking account. And I bought a Morley Bear print for 300, maybe it was 350. So I basically drained by checking account. And the reason that my glance is going that way is that print has been there, and I look at it frequently and it still makes me smile. I still find things in there that I just love to look at. And also, It reminds me of that workshop in Carmel and the amazing experience, and the incredible people I met, one of whom I am still friends with to this day. So the power of the print is enormous. And I encourage everyone to print, whether it’s 4 x 6 or larger. Just print. Share work with people. You know, when when we used to go to dinner parties, and I’m sure we will in the future, people bring wine, we bring a print. So go forth and make work.
01:15:12
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah. Yeah, very well said, Veronica. Yeah, and um— And Eric injured himself in the service of printing. So— Ted asked that question, what happened to his finger. So to get our customers prints, basically Eric will will put his limbs on the line. Yeah, thank you, Eric.
01:15:37
Veronica Cotter: Yeah. Don’t do that again.
01:15:38
Eric Luden: Yeah, I won’t. But Andrea, we’ve pretty much gone through most of the Q&A here, I think, right?
01:15:45
Andrea Zocchi: I think so, yeah. And plus we’re— we’re at our, we’re well beyond our mark. So….
01:15:53
Eric Luden: I just want to reiterate what Veronica said about printing. Whether you do it yourself, whether you do it through us or another lab, just try to pick some and make some prints and you’ll sort of easily recognize the difference of what happens when that— That experience of holding something in your hand versus looking at a monitor. And the other thing is to keep in mind that when you’re looking at something on a monitor, it’s backlit, and it’s a very different experience then what it looks like you’re holding in your hand. You’ll have a different experience, a different connection to it.
01:16:24
Eric Luden: So we really want to encourage all of you to check it out, or even just check out our website, see all the things we do. We like to be a resource. We have a lot of interesting things that we post there, and so does Hahnemühle. So we really want to thank David at VII and everybody at VII who have helped us put on this series and remind people to stay in touch. We’ve got another one coming up, so thank you to David. And again, much— a really great thanks to Veronica for joining us today. And, yes, we have known each other for almost 40 years, I can’t believe it. And just want to thank all of you for attending and spending time with us today.
01:17:02
Eric Luden: That is really the one thing about the pandemic that I see as the silver lining. That, you know, we’re connecting with people all over the world that we never would have connected with otherwise. So we’re really enjoying sharing our knowledge, sharing our experience, sharing our passion for photography. So want to thank you all for joining us, and want to thank the folks at PhotoWings, again, for making all of these technical series possible. So thanks to their team as well. So, I wish everybody a great rest of the week. And a good weekend coming up. And hope everybody has a great day. Thank you, everybody.
01:17:35
Veronica Cotter Thanks everyone.
01:17:36
Andrea Zocchi: Thanks for coming.
