Anyone tried Epson Archival Matte paper for altprocess?

[grzybu]

Hi,

I was thinking about some strong, inexpensive, but very smooth paper for kallitype process.
Till now I'm using Arches Aquarelle (fin) which is very nice, but it's hard to get good detail because of paper texture. In some cases such texture is very desirable, but not always.
So, yesterday I took sheet of injket Epson Archival Matte, coated it and tried simple exposure.
Result is really, really good.
Lots of detail, smooth tones, high contrast. Looks like good quality inkjet print.
The only problem is that it's hard to coat it without any streaks. I'll probably have to try do double coat.
I wonder how archival will be such print? EAM is quite good itself, but I'm not sure how good it can be after treatment using chemicals used in kallitype process.
Well, I don't need 100 years longevity, since I don't sell my prints.
Anyway, I'm going to make some more tests tonight but it looks very promising.

 

[Mark Crabtree]

The trouble with Archival Matte is that it just doesn't seem to be at all archival. I believe it is acidic. There are also lots of reports of it yellowing significantly in a short period of time. I haven't seen that personally, but it seems very much related to environmental conditions.

Epson recognized their error early on and renamed the paper Enhanced Matte. I believe it is/was also sold with the Ultra Premium Presentation Matte name. I still see the Archival Matte name, but am not sure if Epson uses that any more.

That said, Ctein seems to use this paper for his hand made books, and he is usually pretty well informed.

 

[gmikol]

I'm not familiar with the Epson paper mentioned, but my understanding is that the yellowing is likely due in part to fading of the fluorescent whitening additives (FWA's) added to either the base or the coating. If that's not a concern, then the Epson paper is fine if it works for you in other ways. If it is, you might be able to find another inkjet coated paper with a lower FWA content. Just keep in mind that not all coated papers are the same. The coating may lift off / separate during development or clearing, or it may be resistant to clearing or show a stain long after processing, as one generic inkjet paper did when I tried something similar with cyanotype.

Good luck, and let us know what you find out.

--Greg

 

[fotch]

You might try DPUG

 

[gmikol]

I forgot to add that many inkjet papers have a coating very similar in properties to fumed silica, which there is a current thread about here. Advice about coating and clearing could be found there, but probably not much about the properties of the papers itself.

You might want to add a little distilled water to your coating solution so you have more volume without a lot of added chemistry. Might help avoid streaking.

--Greg

PS--I'll also note that the question is perfectly appropriate here, IMO. The OP is not asking about inkjet output, nor digital negatives or hybrid processes. He is asking about coating kallitype on a non-traditional substrate. No different, in principle, than asking about coating on canvas, glass, aluminum, concrete or anything else.

 

[fotch]

Greg your absolutly right, what happens when you don't read all the post or jump to conclusions, my aplogies if I offended anyone.

 

[grzybu]

I forgot to add that many inkjet papers have a coating very similar in properties to fumed silica, which there is a current thread about here. Advice about coating and clearing could be found there, but probably not much about the properties of the papers itself.

You might want to add a little distilled water to your coating solution so you have more volume without a lot of added chemistry. Might help avoid streaking.

This is how it feels while coating. It has some "drag" similar to fumed silica coated paper. Also black areas looks similar.
I'll try double coating with more water. This should give better results, I hope.
I'm using this paper for inkjet print for about 2-3 years and I didn't have any problems so far. Prints displayed without glass show some yellowing (it's just less white), but those under glass are still like new ones.