****!! - Dust! Retouching prints - Pigment inks

[Baxter Bradford]

Dust - after printing, what a nightmare!

Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308gsm is a wonderful paper, but prone to being dusty. With sheet paper, I simply brushed every sheet prior to printing. With 24inch roll paper on my 7800, it isn't a practical proposition.

So faced with a second 55x70cm print which had white specks, once the inked dust had deserted, what to do?

I bought a 0000 sized brush from the art shop and used watercolour paints to spot the print. Of little skill with a brush, I found that it worked remarkably well and will be repeated to rescue others in future.

Seeking other tips/techiniques which you may have discovered to tackle this, or similar issues.

 

[Kirk Gittings]

The usual trick, on b&w in particular, is to pull the appropriate ink cart out (or save your empties they have enough residual ink) stick your 4/0 brush in the opening and spot with that. Works like a charm.

 

[BillSchwab]

The usual trick..

Great tip Kirk... don't know why, but never thought of that one.

Thanks,
Bill

 

[Seamus A Ryan]

Hi Guys

I too had this problem in the early days using my 7800 with photo rag, what I found was if you used the paper catcher to catch the prints once they were cut the paper tended to pick up the lint that also fell into the catcher, now I just make sure I'm around when the print is finished and take it straight from the machine once cut. Also as a lot of my images tend to have large areas of black I used to get scuff marks which I also put down to the paper curling in on itself in the paper catcher, dont get those either.

obviously this means you can't leave the machine to get on with things but hey I always thought one of the beauties of digital output was once you'd spotted in PS that was the end of it, nothing I hate more than spotting silver gelatin prints over and over again (assuming your lucky enough to sell it over and over again)

 

[wiz]

I made "spotting inks" by draining a few ml each from several empty carts into Nalgene bottles, then diluting about 5:1 with MIS dilutant. Works a charm, and I was able to premix some green and red as a real time saver.

 

[ruckusman]

you're already on the right path with the 0000 brush, for areas of specific density (sky etc) some people will print just that tiny section onto gloss paper.

Then spot with the ink from that small print, so that you don't run the risk of getting the colour or density wrong.