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print flattening update
February 23, 2006, from Lloyd Erlick,
My darkroom is pretty much functional again after a hiatus. Yesterday I put my print flattener back into service. It's the high-tech version -- a stack of heavy flat things with a weight on top. Some of my heavy flat things are sheets of glass and some are melamine-covered particle boards of appropriate dimensions (plastic covered both sides). Before using my Print Flattener DeLuxe, I had to clean all the heavy flat things, both sides. The melamine is white, so dirt would show. They were surprisingly clean, actually, even though I've been a bit careless with them recently. I used some ammonia and distilled water on clean rags to swab them. This post is about the tiny things we do that can contaminate our process. While cleaning my plastic covered boards, I found some (mercifully few) tiny black spots. I thought they would be permanent, but I noticed the ammonia dissolved them extremely slowly, and applying a thumbnail broke them up if they were wet with ammonia. Well, it didn't take long to figure out the source of the specks. I sign my prints with India ink. Obviously I have not been patient enough to let the ink dry every time I use it. I'm just glad there were not more black specks. It should be no problem to flatten prints with boards that have dried India ink on them. Once dry the stuff certainly will not transfer. But the presence of the specks gives the flattening devices a dirty look, and makes examining them for real dirt take much longer. It also means I have been careless in handling my prints in the past! I'm just lucky no smudged prints resulted. (Hm - none I noticed, at least ...). So, an unnecessary update. Take more care (even more care ...) with print finishing. Do not allow dirt to accumulate on print flattening devices. India ink on the glass flat things scraped off in an instant. (On glass I could use a razor scraper, but not on the melamine.) India ink on melamine is tenacious and tedious. In the past I've always done print spotting and signing before flattening. I'm not sure why, since flat prints would be easier to spot. Maybe I didn't want to bother flattening prints I decided not to spot and sign. But no signed prints under the flattener would mean no ink transfer ... regards, --le ________________________________ Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto. voice: 416-686-0326 email: net: www.heylloyd.com ________________________________ -- |
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