Pigment Flaking or Chipping from Prints made with Pixma Pro-1 on Fine Art Paper

What's missing, perhaps, is what in the inkjet coating, if anything, is there to retain the pigment.

Also, I would like use interleaving paper, rather than put prints in plastic sleeves.

For the kind of images you do, I am surprised you haven't experimented (?) with printing directly onto fine art watercolor/printmaking paper. You might be surprised at the quality. And if you profile your papers, so much the better. Try some Johannot.

Good luck. Doesn't seem like the batch of paper you got is up to the task.

You had said earlier that the flaking only occurred in the darkest areas, which would point to an ink problem. However, the last image (deflated balloons in a box), seems to show them occurring in all tonal areas, which would point to a problem with the paper or its coating. I think you have a bad batch of paper.

Brian A

that's what I'm leaning toward.

Perhaps it's not a bad idea (if you have the storage space) to hold onto a sheet or two (which would be from different batch/lot #s) of older paper. This is not the first time I've heard of QC problems w/ Hahn paper.

Gesture has put his finger on it - what is there in the inkjet coating, if anything, to retain the pigment. Most of us are not experts in this highly specialized stuff, and we have to expedient and go it on faith in the makers of these materials.

I'll reconsider interleaving paper, though I've always found it awkward to handle. As for using watercolor or printmaking paper, I guess it's worth a try. But I thought that the papers made for inkjet printing had a coating or surface preparation that favors the application of the inkjet pigments (notwithstanding my difficulties), and suppose that using non-inkjet paper would be asking for even more trouble. How is the tonal scale, d-max, etc., typically, when using such papers? My pictures could be rendered in other ways, but I'm inclined to the classic print, technically and esthetically speaking.

I'm afraid I'm not up to the everything-calibrated way of working - I already lose too much time on managing my pictures and keeping up with the new stuff that technology imposes. (And my photographs are very labor-intensive anyway.) Anyway, the only important thing is what comes out of the printer, and I can get what I want without calibrating the screen, the printer, and the paper. I have only tried testing with the canned profile for Turner 310, and the gray scale was inferior to what I got with Color Management by Printer.

I left this following out of my original post, as it was off-subject, and I sure didn't need to make it even longer. But since you mention profiles, maybe it's worth it:

"My gray scale tests indicated that I’d get better results by using “Color Management by Canon” instead of Lightroom management with a profile dedicated to the Turner paper. The gray scale with Canon Color Matching showed better separation in the darkest zones – let’s say from values 0-4-8-12 on a scale from 0 to 255 – than the ones made with the canned paper profile. Of these, the one made with Rendering Intent: Perceptual got just about as dark at the low end as the Canon-color-managed print, but was a little darker throughout most of the gray scale, especially near the low end. The consequence was that from about 0 to 32 the steps were not very distinct from one another. The two gray scales were only about the same from around 216 to 255. The other, made with Rendering Intent: Relative, had rather weak deep shadows: below about 32 they just didn’t get much darker, and I could barely distinguish the steps below that point. Above 48 or 56 it was fairly similar to the Canon-color-managed print."

I know this is not the same as using a custom profile, but how much better could a custom profile be, even if it incorporates the characteristics of a particular printer and a particular batch of paper?

Hugowolf, you're right about the balloons image - as I wrote, it wasn't quite as I had thought before. But even if all tonal areas are prone to flaking, it seems the darkest tones are still more inclined to it, as this is practically the only place where it was provoked simply by sliding the print into the bag, as opposed to the gentle finger massage, which provoked them all over.

I'll try to make a couple of prints soon, to apply what I'm learning.

Thanks again and best regards, Al

That's experiment, not expedient, in the first paragraph.

AlienAl said:

... what is there in the inkjet coating, if anything, to retain the pigment.

Click to expand...

Usually a silica material with a binding agent. It is called a microporous coating.

AlienAl said:

... As for using watercolor or printmaking paper, How is the tonal scale, d-max, etc., typically, when using such papers?

Click to expand...

Hard sized papers work better than soft sized papers, and waterleaf (unsized paper) doesn't work well at all. You really have to experiment to find a paper that works ok, but none will reach the Dmax and color saturation of a coated paper.

AlienAl said:

I'm afraid I'm not up to the everything-calibrated way of working - I already lose too much time on managing my pictures and keeping up with the new stuff that technology imposes.

Click to expand...

How much time do you think monitor calibration takes? Maybe 10 mins every three months or so.

AlienAl said:

... I have only tried testing with the canned profile for Turner 310, and the gray scale was inferior to what I got with Color Management by Printer.

Click to expand...

Could be the Hahnemühle profile isn't very good, could be your workflow, or ...

AlienAl said:

I left this following out of my original post, as it was off-subject, and I sure didn't need to make it even longer. But since you mention profiles, maybe it's worth it:

... but how much better could a custom profile be, even if it incorporates the characteristics of a particular printer and a particular batch of paper?

Click to expand...

For around $30 you could have one made and find out.

Brian A

Dear Hugowolf/Brian A:

Thanks for the info about the inkjet coating and the wc/printmaking papers. This binding agent must be such that it doesn't bind to the inkjet nozzles, and I guess it's basically OK. (In Canon We Trust.)

But does the coating of the inkjet paper (let's say, Turner) also serve to help the pigment adhere, or does it just smooth out the surface of the paper, finishing what the calendaring starts, filling in the tiny spaces between fibers?

The paper coating is applied, I presume (as opposed to permeating the paper, as colloid sizing generally does), as most papers are made to be printed on one side only. But is an inkjet paper coating is some sense a size, even if applied only to the surface?

I suppose coated fine-art inkjet papers would go at the upper end of that scale of hard-sized, soft-sized, and waterleaf - is that about right? But if, as you say, none of them will give me the Dmax of a coated paper (e.g. Turner 310), maybe I wouldn't care too much for them. My pictures tend to very low-keyed and dark, and they lose a lot when they don't have good blacks and shadows. If you want to see what I mean, go to: www.allenschill.com - anything in the first couple of menus will show you.

All these considerations lead me to think of the possibility of sizing the Pixma Pro-1 prints (or similar) after the prints are made. I remember what I had to do years ago for certain hand-coated processes: before coating with the photosensitive solution, I sized the sheets of paper in a hot bath of gelatin and hung them to dry. When dry, I gave them a hardening bath in a weak solution of formaldehyde (a bit nasty to work with; rubber gloves and good ventilation imperative). When dry again they were ready for coating. That's more work than I want to have to do, so it's not a very serious proposal, but I'll bet that would protect the print surface.

About monitor calibration, your ten minutes every few months sounds like my routine for the Mac OS calibration. It only changes slightly anyway. But is this what you mean? I had thought the use of Color Munki (or similar) to be really precise, both for the monitor and the paper batch-printer combination, was implied by "calibration" in this context, in order to get the most out of a dedicated profile. (My understanding of advance calibration is rudimentary.) But I sigh with fatigue and a little guilt when I think of adding this routine to my workflow. Maybe I'm lazy, but there's only so much technique I can handle, and I don't have any trouble getting the prints the way I want. (I work very rarely in color.) And I repeat, it's already hard to devote adequate time to the photographs.

True, maybe the HM profile isn't very good, or there's something wrong with my workflow. I think maybe I've heard of this $30 deal for a custom profile. But how does it work? You print out a file and mail it to someone who'll read it and create a profile? I guess ideally you should do this for each new batch of paper.

best regards, Al

Yes, that is how a custom profile works. You obtain the target files from the person/company making the profile, print them out and mail them to the person/company. They read the patches and email you the resultant profile. You *could* do it for every batch of paper but almost no one does

I dont think a bad profile is your problem here, i think you have a bad batch of paper.

Forgive me if this has already been covered. Can you see the small detached particles in a virgin sleeve after you have removed the print? If so then try putting a piece of unprinted paper into another sleeve and see if it leaves particles then.

The main purpose of the silica material, (usually referred to as a silica pigment) is to quickly absorb the inks’ solvent, in this case mostly water. It is there to minimize bleed into the surrounding areas and accelerate drying time. The main purpose of the binder, mostly polyvinyl alcohol, is a vehicle for the silica, not the ink.

With a pen and ink on fine art paper, the ink doesn’t fall off the paper. I think you have a bad batch of paper.

Ten minutes for hardware calibration. I don’t use a Color Munki, I have an X-rite colorimeter specifically designed to work with my NEC monitors. But they all work the same way: give the software the parameters you want to use for the monitor: color temp, luminance level, etc. Dangle the colorimeter puck over the front of the monitor, go and make a cup of coffee.

And like Howard says, in practice few profile each batch of paper without an automated reader. Manually scanning two or three sheets of color patches is both time consuming and tedious to say the least. But it takes less than a minute to scan a blank sheet in a few places, import the data into Excel, average it, and compare the spectral reflectance curve of one batch to another. A paper manufacturer would have to have changed the ‘recipe’ for the need for a new profile.

Brian A

To Howard, xrdbear, and Hugowoalf:

Yes, it seems clear I have a peculiar batch of paper. (Profiles aside.) And thank you for the micro-view of the pigment layer. It helps to be able to visualize it.

About the particles: yes, you can see the detached particles. But you don't have to remove the print from the sleeve, you can see them anyway against the white. (See photo.) They tend to stick to the sleeves.



Brian - or xrdbear - I tried your experiment with a virgin sleeve and a sheet of unpainted paper. First I brushed the sheet - with a little more pressure than I would have done just to remove loose dust, but not much. And what do you know, as I brushed I saw one particle detach itself right before my eyes. I looked around the sheet with a good raking light, with my new hyper attention to the surface, I could see several more high points. (Like a wall painted white but with an occasional small hard particle.) And sure enough, when I slid the print in and out of the bag a few more times, allowing the edge of the sleeve to drag along the print surface (just as I always did before, without flaking) some of them detached as well.

The first photo below is of the fresh sleeve with several specks of material detached from an unprinted sheet of Wm. Turner 310. They usually pop up to the outside of the sleeve and stay there near the edge of the sleeve. These specks haven't been moved by me. The second photo is of the same, but with most of the specks gathered in one place with the finger. As they are white, you can hardly see them unless the sleeve is picking up a reflection. Mind that there would have been considerably more had I brushed a bit more aggressively or slid the paper in and out of the sleeve a few more times. (All the photos show an area about 5 cm. long.)

I hadn't thought to post them, but why not? I will send them to Hahnemuehle as well.









The next step is to print on this sheet and see how well the chipped spots will take the pigment. Costs me something, but it should be worth knowing. Thanks for the idea.

About custom profiles - you can see how rough is my understanding of advanced calibration. I didn't know you could scan a blank sheet and work with that data. This would seem to me to provide only data on the paper's reflectivity and base color, so as to adjust (using the fresh profile) for minor differences from batch to batch. I had thought the idea of the long and tedious method was to give you actual data on the output of a particular printer on a particular paper.

I am relieved that many serious photographers who print are not so much more fanatical than I am about this stuff. I find it hard to keep up, but I like to learn what I can.

best regards, Al





--


AlienAl

AlienAl said:

...

About custom profiles - you can see how rough is my understanding of advanced calibration. I didn't know you could scan a blank sheet and work with that data. This would seem to me to provide only data on the paper's reflectivity and base color, so as to adjust (using the fresh profile) for minor differences from batch to batch. I had thought the idea of the long and tedious method was to give you actual data on the output of a particular printer on a particular paper.

Click to expand...

You wouldn't use uninked paper measurements to tweak a profile, adjusting profiles really isn't a good idea. No, you would use the measurements to ensure there have been no changes between one batch of paper and another, so you can continue using the same custom profile. If you found differences in the spectral reflectance curve between two batch, then you would want to reprofile.

Brian A

Reply to all:

It's time for the epilog to this story with the flaky William Turner 310 paper. I communicated with both Hahnemuehle and Monochrom (my dealer) about the problem (and both companies were very forthcoming). As per instructions (not very precise), I sent Monochrom two small samples of a scrap print - around 7x15 cm., one from the unprinted margin area and one from a printed area that displayed the defect. I wrapped them carefully in a plastic sleeve, the sleeve folded over so that the patches wouldn't rub against each other in the mail. (This was less trouble and much less expense than what I had expected, as somehow I had the impression that I'd have to ship all the unused paper in order to request a replacement.)

Apparently Monochrom then passed my samples on to Hahnemuehle, which evaluated them and soon passed their evaluation to Monochrom. HM identified the spots on my paper as "flaking", and said that it occurs very seldom. (I was glad they agreed with me and that there wouldn't be a dispute, but I felt a bit like when you go to the doctor with a case of bronchitis and the doc says "You've got bronchitis".) HM said also that a new batch was in production, and that as soon as the paper was ready and sent to Monochrom, they would send me two replacement boxes of A3Plus.

The paper arrived just the other day, and I soon was at it. I made one test strip just to be sure I hadn't developed clogs in the two months the Pixma Pro-1 was out of action. The test was fine, so I made a whole print, which was also fine, so I made prints of several more images, and they were everything I expected.

I'll let them sit exposed to the air for a couple days and then - carefully - try to provoke a bit of flaking by rubbing gently, as I did with the prints made with the bad batch, and by slipping them into the sleeves with "normal" care - that is, without fanatically making sure that the edge of the sleeve should never scrape against the print surface as I slide the print into the sleeve. If you don't hear anymore from me on this thread, you can assume all has ended well.

Again, I must praise Monochrom and Hahnemuehle for being so correct in backing up merchandise of a value (to me) of about $5 a sheet - around $250 in all. (Not that they ought to have done any less under the circumstances, but many companies would have denied that there was any problem at all.) What surprises me about Hahnemuehle, however, given their fine reputation, is not that they might have produced a bad batch, but that apparently they don't test their production runs, at least not for this sort of defect (which is very easy to detect). If they did test, they would have avoided creating big problems for me and for the many other customers who bought the same batch.

I am still annoyed, however, that no one is going to compensate me for the wasted ink used in making nine A3Plus prints. (And it could have been much worse - I might have made many more before realizing there was a serious defect.) Most pigment printers (people) have a rough idea of how much ink they use in an typical print - or rather of how much that ink cost them. My pictures tend to be heavy in the shadows and blacks, so probably I use more ink than the average printer (maybe much more), but my rough idea is around $8 per print. I'm willing to pay for the stuff, but damn, I hate to waste it.

(I couldn't help but notice, after printing today, that I was down near the bottom with four ink tanks, and at about 40% remaining in the other eight tanks. This, mind you, got me only seventeen A3Plus prints, and all in pure B&W, so that supposedly little color ink is used. So the Pro-1 is practically out of the box, and it's already time to order ink tanks. But that's another subject.)


Ink levels in first set of ink tanks after initial ink-line-charging and 17 A3Plus B&W prints.

best regards, Al

--
AlienAl

Thanks for the follow-up. Having read all your posts, I think you should use interleaving tissues. Plus storing in plastic sleeves just doesn't seem conducive to archival results, including aforementioned abrasion.

Thanks, Gesture, for your continuing interest, and your advice. But my earlier experience with the Turner paper - slight abrasion due simply to weight and the slight movements of the folder or portfolio box - convinces me that interleaving paper wouldn't solve the problem, unless I restricted myself to very shallow boxes of no more than about eight or ten prints per box. That's not convenient for me, as I like to keep 25 or 30 prints in a Light Impressions portfolio box. A good number of prints to show, as well as to store. It's true that interleaving paper is less abrasive than William Turner 310, but there is still the weight to consider. (Never mind the nuisance - at least for me - of handling an extra, ultra-light sheet of paper when I'm handling my prints.) Far less abrasive still are the archival PP sleeves, which, I have found, allow me to store 25-30 prints in a box with no danger of abrasion. Personally I like the very thin, very clear BOPP sleeves.

I repeat that the flaking or chipping problem is quite distinct from the routine risk of abrasion with these rough papers. Hahnemuehle confirmed that this flaking was the problem, and they sent me a replacement supply. The only connection of this problem with the storage bags was the fact that the weakness of the print surface, due to the paper defect, was such that the very slight touch of the edge of the sleeve, as it passes over the print when the print is inserted, was enough to chip off bits of pigment. The Turner paper ordinarily doesn't have any such problem. The several prints I made with the new paper have been sleeved with no sign of flaking. Happy ending, except that I wasted a lot of time and pigment and grief over it all.

Best regards, Al

I'm sort of surprised that Wm. Turner doesn't have the problem or some form of it.

It's like rough sandpaper

Howard Moftich said:

I'm sort of surprised that Wm. Turner doesn't have the problem or some form of it.

It's like rough sandpaper

Click to expand...

Much like Turner himself, by all accounts.

Brian A

To HugoWolf- Maybe I wasn't clear enough. The Wm. Turner paper does indeed have the tendency to abrade and be abraded with a little weight and slight motion - when the prints are stacked too high in storage boxes, with nothing in between to keep the prints from rubbing against each other. I presume it's a general tendency of the rougher fine art papers, this. (I've noticed that canvas made for inkjet is highly prone to rubbing-off of the pigment - light finger swipe was enough. To me it seems like a challenge for the people who formulate these papers and inks.)

All this of course is quite apart from the flaking problem with this one batch of Turner, which was an anomaly I will watch out for (and so should everyone, until we can all be sure that no defective paper reaches us consumers, a matter of rigorous testing by the manufacturers).

To Howard - Ha-ha - I appreciate this, as I saw the film recently and was surprised at the man's unorthodox technique - particularly spitting. I should think spit might be OK for a watercolor painting, but for an oil I figure it would not good for the longevity of the painting - oil and water, you know.... I'll have to ask the next painting conservation expert I meet. I'm not going to try anything like that with my Pixma - it's not a sewing machine.

best, Al

Hopefully, a last word on this topic - but one topic leads to another. This follows more logically from my post of a month ago, the longish one above with the ink supply image. At the end of August I wrote to Hahnemuehle about my tribulations. (Sent it to three different people there.) I've had no answer, and by now (Sept. 30) I suppose I won't, unless I really make a pain of myself. So here it is, a bit below, for all to share.

On the issue of compensation for wasted materials - ink - due to a manufacturing defect, I was interested to read in another dpreview forum that someone actually got Canon to send him, free, replacement ink that was wasted due to a faulty print head. Amazing - almost miraculous - but Canon did the right thing in this case. I guess, however that I'm S.O.L. (SOOL?) with Hahnemuehle for any guarantee except on the paper itself - nothing for ink, or wasted time, or grief, even though Hahnemuehle could have easily avoided issuing a batch of paper with such a defect.

AlienAl said:

Dear Hahnemuehle,

You recently replaced for me two packages of your William Turner 310, A3 Plus, 25 sheets per box, due to a manufacturing defect that causes flaking of the print surface. (You sent the replacement paper to Monochrom, who then shipped the paper to me.)

I appreciate the fact that you made no trouble about replacing the paper – I only had to mail Monochrom a couple of samples, which were forwarded to you for examination. (I have said as much in the conclusion of a thread posted at dpreview, which I started a couple of months ago to try to get some opinions about the unusual flaking problem.)

However, I regret the loss of the ink wasted on the nine prints I made before discovering that there was a problem with the paper (or perhaps the ink system, as I suspected at first, given that I was using a brand new Pixma Pro-1, while before I had used the Turner paper with the Pixma Pro9500 with no problems). Based on my per-print ink costs with the Pro9500 (using Turner 310), I estimate that I wasted around €70 worth of ink on these prints. (That may seem like a lot, but my photographs have a lot of blacks and shadows.) I don’t expect that anyone is going to make this up to me. And yet, I suppose I should count myself fortunate for not having printed many more than nine prints – after all, the flaking defect doesn’t appear until the prints are put into archival sleeves, or subject to the slight rubbing of being stacked together and handled. If I had simply boxed the prints, instead of putting them in sleeves a few days after printing them, I might not have discovered the problem for months, possibly after having printed all 50 sheets.

Naturally I also regret the time wasted on these prints, and the trouble of the determination the cause and the eventual resolution of the problem – all together worth considerably more than the mere cost of the ink wasted. Not to mention the anxiety of a mysterious problem that made it impossible for me to work. I was concerned that there might be a serious problem with the paper that I had selected after many tests and much consideration of other papers, and which I had already used for quite a few prints.

Most of all, however, I wish to ask you of Hahnemuehle how a batch of paper with this defect could ever have been released for sale. No doubt you conduct some sort of quality control during production. But evidently you make no test that would have revealed this defect. And it would seem to me a fairly easy test to perform, as it is (although rare) a defect already known to you, which can be detected simply by rubbing or light scraping. (As I myself discovered the problem quite by chance when putting the prints in sleeves.) Presumably there are many more people who have bought and used paper of the same batch, and all of them will have had an experience similar to mine, unless for some reason they have haven’t yet discovered the defect.

Think of all the trouble that could have been avoided, for me and for many others, by a simple test. Naturally, when I consider Hahnemuehle’s reputation and centuries of experience, I am surprised that such a test is not a routine part of your quality control. Such being the case, it makes me wonder – and worry a bit, frankly – whether there might be other, more subtle defects with your papers from time to time, perhaps defects which are not likely to be discovered by the people who use them for their printing, and which may become evident only after some years.

Please excuse the lengthy complaint, which I am sorry to have to write. Thank you for your kind attention.

Sincerely yours,

Allen Schill

Click to expand...

there is just about no way that Hahn was going to send you a check or ink. The most they would have done is send some paper.

And, on an observational note, it's a German company and they behave that way in general.

I suppose you can vote w/ your wallet if you choose.