Laminating prints?

[marciofs]

Why it is not common to see laminated prints for display. I think it could be a greate option to replace frames and mountings.

 

[Hilo]

My experience is with analog b/w prints on fiber paper

Matts for mounting prints are acid free and they come with a hinged back carton, also acid free. This protects the prints.

Quality glass will give you a good idea of the paper structure and the intensity of the image. In other words it will show the beauty of the print.

Laminates are generally of a much lesser quality and I even doubt if they exist in high quality.

Then, just personally: I spend a lot of time getting the best prints possible. That has to do with the enlargers I use, and the chemicals. With the paper, with the retouch, with the matting, with the frames. The thought to hide all that behind ugly plastic, yak !

 

[Xmas]

I make a gillee print laminate it and gloss it with burn dodge filter template information and file for a reprint...
If you are giving or selling a gillee then the surfaces are like butterfly wings upon abrasion with my office all in one but I've never done that yet.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Why it is not common to see laminated prints for display. I think it could be a greate option to replace frames and mountings.

Who knows what that would do to the longevity of the print? but it surely would changeits appearance;gloss,contrast,Dmax,reflections:confused:

 

[doughowk]

They certainly look good. But I'd suspect the sides of the prints would act like wicks for mosture, pollutants, etc.; so they would show greater aging than the center.

 

[removed account4]

marciofs

i have some of my photographs dry mounted and then laminated with a uv glazing.
the company that does it for me had things they did with the same process IDK 20-25 years before
which looked exactly as it did the day they were made. i've been doing this for beteen 5-10 years
and the first ones i did look just as nice as the last ones ..

 

[Ian Grant]

It depends what you mean by display. I get prints laminated occasionally but not to exhibit them rather for use pinned up somewhere. It looks down-market and the only reason for doing it is robustness where an print may get a lot of handling.

I laminated a large print and used it to demonstrate the Zone system using a china-graph crayon to write on the surface.

Ian

 

[Sirius Glass]

I have been happy with the Plak-It® comes out. http://www.plak-it.com/how.html

 

[marciofs]

Many good points here.
I actually never tried but was wondering about.

 

[MartinP]

I am unclear whether the OP means laminating the print TO something, as a support medium, or laminate the print WITH something, as a surface protection method?

Laminating TO something is basically cold or hot mounting and the substrates are typically a mounting-card, foamboard (including cold-mount self-adhesive) or another composite product. I've done this at home with prints up to 50cm and it works quite adequately, although there is no protection for the print surface of course (dust, scratches, pollutants etc.).

Laminating WITH something is more tricky without mounting rollers and a very clean work environment. One option is mounting the face of the print to an acrylic panel and this is offered as a standard service by many suppliers of digital prints. It would be interesting to see a large, glossy, black-and-white, silver-gelatine print mounted in this way.

Decades ago textured surface laminates were used to make prints more difficult to light for copying, when the single print was special in some way and the only item supplied to the customer. When I worked in a lab we would regularly turn away people who wanted copyright-busting copy negs from some photographic artwork or other.

 

[marciofs]

I mean laminating with something.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Wedding labs use to spray a laminate called pro texture, actually very harmful to the technician and certainly looked good but gave absolutely no archival attributes.
Many people laminate prints for commercial purposes so that they can in some cases withstand the outside elements, or be cleaned by staff .

Thick Resin has been the rage here in Toronto over the last 15 years where resin is poured over prints and I mean thick- up to 1 inch in depth- beautiful look allows the photograph not to be framed and sells very well.
But over years many of the very first people doing this Resin and doing it well have stopped, problems within the mount or De lamination issues.

Face to Plexi, basically exactly how it sounds has been very popular for over 30 years where one mounts the face of the print to high quality plexi using an extremely optically clear double sided adhesive, then this mount is placed on a large diabond backing to hang.
Current proponents of this method would be someone like Peter Lik.

I placed a mural cibachrome show in the Smithsonian over twenty years ago for a client where we backed two of these types of units together then grommet holed the tops and they were hung by heavy chains and people could walk around them in the exhibit.

Very thick plexi 1/2-1 inch can also be face mounted then the edges are torched and smoothed to an appealing encapsulated mount.

All kinds of methods of lamination, the best is very expensive and basically more of a decor, commercial method of displaying ones work IMHO.

I prefer not to put anything on the emulsion and really like traditional framing methods, as outlined in Wilhelm and Brower's excellent
book The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs: lots of good information in this one book.

I mean laminating with something.

 

[RobC]

Why it is not common to see laminated prints for display. I think it could be a greate option to replace frames and mountings.

I think it has become increasingly common with the advent of inkjet prints. The kit to do it is readily available and quite cheap and easy to use.
The only questions I have about it are archival qualities of cold mount adhesive both for back of print and face mounting. Nobody seems to know and if you ask the manufacturers of coldmount film they will tell you it's archival. But for how long.
Having said that I suspect it'll be good for 50 years which is plenty unless you're selling work for a lot of money. For commercial work display life is usually very short so its not such a concern.

 

[Bob Carnie]

If you are selling Cprints or inkjets the prints will fade before the mount will become an issue.

QUOTE=RobC;1953790542]I think it has become increasingly common with the advent of inkjet prints. The kit to do it is readily available and quite cheap and easy to use.
The only questions I have about it are archival qualities of cold mount adhesive both for back of print and face mounting. Nobody seems to know and if you ask the manufacturers of coldmount film they will tell you it's archival. But for how long.
Having said that I suspect it'll be good for 50 years which is plenty unless you're selling work for a lot of money. For commercial work display life is usually very short so its not such a concern.[/QUOTE]

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Bob , as you love to own them canadian banknotes are BOPP film laminates. I once sent an article to use many chinese banknote safety inks to laminate with electric fluorescent paint.

I even posted to use these electric light inks to illuminate shadow and light areas to display better from back of the print. You can even use fibers in your lamination to make it stronger to tear.

I think OPs question is very good. My university friend was putting laminates on this book covers and they were bullet proof. Very good idea.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Thin clear laminates over the face of large color prints has been quite common for trade show applications as well as inexpensive big decor
prints. It spares the print of secondary reflections and also provides a degree of protection. To do it well requires specialized industrial equipment. It also can look cheap, like a big plastic place mat. Face mounting with actual acrylic sheet can be expensive. I developed a proprietary hermetic method of doing this on large Cibachromes which did not involve liquid encapsulation. It was elegant but expensive and quite a chore. Nowadays I think I'd just mount and frame the print normally and get rid of the secondary reflections by using optically coated acrylic, which is itself very expensive, but much easier to use.

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Thin clear laminates over the face of large color prints has been quite common for trade show applications as well as inexpensive big decor
prints. It spares the print of secondary reflections and also provides a degree of protection. To do it well requires specialized industrial equipment. It also can look cheap, like a big plastic place mat. Face mounting with actual acrylic sheet can be expensive. I developed a proprietary hermetic method of doing this on large Cibachromes which did not involve liquid encapsulation. It was elegant but expensive and quite a chore. Nowadays I think I'd just mount and frame the print normally and get rid of the secondary reflections by using optically coated acrylic, which is itself very expensive, but much easier to use.

Dear Drew,

Could you please tell that did you mean uv sensitive rapid prototyping photosensitive acrylic with optically coated acrylic ? It sure comes in big container and very expensive.

Umut

 

[DREW WILEY]

Optically coated acrylic sheet was originally designed for instrument panels on expensive sports cars. It greatly removes surface reflections,
and is hard to break. It has since become popular for framing valuable art works. Certain types also include a UV-inhibitor, although this
inevitably is either yellowish or pinkish (much like a UV camera filter), and mutes the perception of blue a bit. Pieces of this can be custom
cut by specialty framing dealers, or in this area, it can be bought in full sheets by people with wholesales licenses and the proper kind of
cutting equipment (which I have). It's also ridiculously expensive. So it's no substitute for over-lamination in ordinary commercial applications. More for real fine art displays. Optically coated picture frame glass is somewhat cheaper, but risks breakage and doesn't
thermally insulate the print as well, so in certain climates risks condensation behind the glass. But visually, wow!

 

[Bob Carnie]

A couple of years back I investigated a company that was looking for representation in Canada. Their product was a spray on glass that was optically pure and had AR capabilities.

nothing ever came of this , and I wonder if any of you have heard of this product?.

Apparently it was to be used as a protection on high speed trains in Europe.. not sure about this as well.
But what a application if it worked.. would put face mouning to acrylic out of contention, and if
PH neutral a very good application for contemporary Art work.

I still prefer AR Glass with proper framing
QUOTE=DREW WILEY;1953792750]Optically coated acrylic sheet was originally designed for instrument panels on expensive sports cars. It greatly removes surface reflections,
and is hard to break. It has since become popular for framing valuable art works. Certain types also include a UV-inhibitor, although this
inevitably is either yellowish or pinkish (much like a UV camera filter), and mutes the perception of blue a bit. Pieces of this can be custom
cut by specialty framing dealers, or in this area, it can be bought in full sheets by people with wholesales licenses and the proper kind of
cutting equipment (which I have). It's also ridiculously expensive. So it's no substitute for over-lamination in ordinary commercial applications. More for real fine art displays. Optically coated picture frame glass is somewhat cheaper, but risks breakage and doesn't
thermally insulate the print as well, so in certain climates risks condensation behind the glass. But visually, wow![/QUOTE]

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Optically coated acrylic sheet was originally designed for instrument panels on expensive sports cars. It greatly removes surface reflections,
and is hard to break. It has since become popular for framing valuable art works. Certain types also include a UV-inhibitor, although this
inevitably is either yellowish or pinkish (much like a UV camera filter), and mutes the perception of blue a bit. Pieces of this can be custom
cut by specialty framing dealers, or in this area, it can be bought in full sheets by people with wholesales licenses and the proper kind of
cutting equipment (which I have). It's also ridiculously expensive. So it's no substitute for over-lamination in ordinary commercial applications. More for real fine art displays. Optically coated picture frame glass is somewhat cheaper, but risks breakage and doesn't
thermally insulate the print as well, so in certain climates risks condensation behind the glass. But visually, wow!

Dear Drew,

If you say wow, I believe it certainly it is. Can you please give commerical names and links for wholesale sellers and cut piece sellers for either plastic and glass.

Thank you,

Umut

 

[DREW WILEY]

There are no doubt sources in the EU. The most common brand in the US is Tru-Vue. The site references resellers, or you simply seach via
product name for dealers. There are numerous products involved, some glass, some plastics. I doubt the 3-layer laminated "Museum" style products offers any serious extra longevity to color photographs. I'd just avoid UV illumination like halogens or sunlight to begin with. And don't confuse these products with inexpensive textured non-glare plastic, which affect crisp viewing just like nonglare glass.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Why it is not common to see laminated prints for display. I think it could be a greate option to replace frames and mountings.

not a good idea. The print needs to breathe or it may silver out