And I kind of thought this was the perfect segue to do that. The left and the right arent so important. There is a rear-feed, but you can stack paper in and then with this printer theres a manual feed through the rear. Just open iTunes, go to the store, search for AskBC, and click Leave a Review on the show page. THink of them sort of like on your car, so as the printhead goes back into place to be parked, blades wipe off the bottom, thats to get rid of excess ink, then it gets parked on the capping station, those blades need to be cleaned too. Then you have your framed work. Because especially the trailing edge, and when hes talking about the leading edge of the paper. We need 812, 1218, 1624. So you really should consider how thick do you want to go? So, have you never heard of the mylar strips? Lets just look at some potential reasons for the problems she may be having with the mylar tabs, and Ill get into what those are. And then of course that will affect wiper blades, so thats something else cleaning capping stations well be talking about with the routine printer maintenance. So, anyway, I have some questions I wish Bob had given a little more details. So we go through a lot of trouble to have the best printers, inks, profiles, papers I dont want any adhesive in contact and then its permanently stuck. Want to save this conversation for reference later? Ill send some pictures in the show notes so people will understand if they havent seen these. And Ill discuss advantages and disadvantages of different mounting types in a minute. One of the things you should always do is dust the paper before you feed it into the printer. I dont know if shes trying to dry mount. You know, head strikes are very dangerous, they can completely ruin your print head or damage it severely. Or perhaps I edited my image did something a little different, I want to reprint it. Hopefully not, and Ill get into that in a second. I would recommend a 17 minimum because youre going to have cheaper costs for ink, be able to take more papers that will have other features the 13 do not. Okay? Now that is done to minimize possible head strikes at the beginning and end of the print. Been dying to get another episode on the books, so Im glad were finally here today. But I dont recommend dry or cold mounting because its best to not place adhesives in contact with the print. Thats for reasons I dont want to get into with dyed couplers and things like that, but nonetheless theres no comparison to pigment inks. Justin: Thats how it works sometimes, it takes a while. Im excited to do that on this next episode. Its kind of hidden at the bottom right. You can do it that way. Justin: Yep, thats pretty common for third party papers. With archival-quality mounting strips, no adhesive touches the print itself meaning when you or your customer wants to swap mats, youre not out of luck. Just depends on whether or not you want to show the fullyou know, like if you have a fancy paper with the deckled edge, youre going to want to show the edge. There is a good reason why thats going to look mottled. Ill get into that in a second, but if youre using those strips, I would say be sure that adhesive portion you want it to be up against the edge of the print, and then the polyester portion will, you know, cover the edge, or the border. Or they get dislodged later, same thing can happen on a subsequent print, and you can either get fully clogged or partially clogged nozzles due to the fibers. Justin: Yeah, its always interesting to get peoples feedback on the show notes page on the comments. So again, I dont know where hes buying from. So, just depends on what you want to do. So this is just the coolest method ever. Roller Marks & Random Ink Drops That Ruin Prints, Epson Print Length, PW Sensors, & Printing with Missing Colors, Corel Painter vs. Photoshop: Digital Painting Showdown, Art by Design: 11 Elements of Successful Images, 5 Ways to Increase Your Sales with Vinyl Banners. I can just flip one open and take a quick shot, and Ill include it in the shownotes as to what it looks like. Well be doing our best to release weekly episodes of AskBC for you throughout the year featuring your favorite guest experts as well as hopefully introducing you to a few new ones. I was really blown away by this when I first started here, it took me a while to wrap my head around just how much technical knowledge goes into developing these coatings and, you know, making these small advancements year after year. Really cool, I kind of had no idea that these kind of things were supposed to be considered when you talk about buying a print. Or maybe not using enough strips or theyre not in the right position. And sometimes people will, lets just say, you want to make a 1218 print and youre using a 1319 paper. Theyre not expensive, but I love those strips. And thats really what is recommended by, you know, museum staff and art experts. Slip the new one in. So this is the issue here theyre making your ICC profile, and it has to be based on a media type its got to do with the ink throttling and other things, but theyre trying to subvert what Canon put there to begin with. I used to buy some from LightImpressions, which is no longer in business, but the strips work great. Weve talked about this before in other podcasts the need to allow the print to outgas in our prior episode. When I started here three years ago I quickly began to realize that our primary focuses are really improving print quality within the industry. Renee: Yes, it is! But the problem is, once thats in a review, that becomes part of the common thought and still no matter what still, inkjet-based dye inks they do have more longevity than the type of dyes that are used in your chromogenic prints. So the Swiffer Duster. Breathing Color were a great company. So its setting the head height based on those instructions, but, actually, youre running something twice as thick. Your other option of course is to buy the big boards and take them to a framing shop and have them cut them down to size and cut window mats for you. Renee: Yeah, its pretty common. I dont mean to be a commercial here. For instance, you remember last year when you posted an article on the 3880 I think you did a podcast on that as well, but there was an article on how to feed canvas into the back the manual-feed mechanism on the 3880 by using a leader strip because its not meant for that. CLICK HERE to download the free audio transcription of Episode 34 of #AskBC! And then you can take that print, store it safely in an archival box. You get a really heavy cotton paper, and what happens is especially the trailing edge as the papers fed through the printer, obviously theres rollers that move it through. Hopefully some of those recommendations help her out. Your piece is stuck to that board forever. Can You Print on Canvas With an Inkjet Printer? I usually put two on each dimension for most prints. It isnt gonna scuff your print, and it, via electrostatic attraction, it removes those cotton fibers. So, a huge benefit of working with Breathing Color is our support, which is fantastic. Thank you so much and well talk to you soon. I get mine from a company called Readymat here in California mainly because its one of the few companies that make window mats with pre-cut openings that are absolutely perfect for this 3:2 aspect ratio, which is the standard ratio for a digital SLR. Ive tried everything under the sun for mounting prints and this is just the best thing because nothing touches the print itself, which is the best method to use. I think maybe the print is either not dry, or shes pressing the strips, like I said, to close against the edge of the print that may cause a little bending. Justin: [laughs] That seems a little extreme. If you liked this post, youll love these related ones: How to use archival mounting strips to avoid permanently affixing art to boards and mats, plus a discussion on common issues that arise when printing on heavy cotton papers. If you have that to hold it in place so that the print is flat, thats what I do. We also put up show notes for every AskBC episode filled with extra links and information. So thats a whole different technique than using a window mat and having the image covered up to the border or the actual edge of the image. That its fed properly or its flat. I can sit here and show you ICC profiles for pigment versus dye inks, and I guarantee you youre going to get the best gamut and the best longevity from pigment inks. That can cause it to bend upward, and the artwork needs to breathe. Not the standard thing youre going to find at ToysRUs or something. Have you ever had this problem where youre cursing, the print comes out, it looks perfect, it gets to the very, very, very end and Boom youve got this issue or streak on it. Lets just say, you know, I need the mat to mount and frame a different image. If youre trying to print up to the very, very, very edge, you know, on a cotton paper, thats problematic. If its not flat, get a deroller. But, you know, the head strikes really are dangerous because it can also knock your printhead out of alignment and ruin it. But, anyway, I invite Bob to answer my questions on Disqus like what paper was this, how thick is it, is it a Canon paper? I could be completely off, but just the impression I get since hes having these strike problems. Renee: I dont think so in the real world, I dont know where they came from. Renee: Especially the cotton papers. I did post an article last year on how to configure printer settings for third party papers, which talks about how to set a media type and then you may have to go in and manually widen the platen gap or head height. When you get to the end, theres no longer rollers in place to hold the paper down as its starting to come out of the printer on the trailing edge, and thats where you risk the head strike. This is not an option on even 17 models like the venerable Epson 3880 or even the newer SureColor P800, the P600 you dont get that. So what am I going to do with what has not sold? The idea is that the bigger the show gets, the more resources and experts we can bring to it for you guys. The top piece of see-through archival polyester, and half of it is attached to actual conservation board, like mat board. Justin: I dont understand their decision on that either, because its, you know, the printers price range is so low that it makes sense to save a hundred dollars or something just to get those dye based inks, its not like youre saving a bunch of money. And as always, if you want to hear your printmaking question featured on the show, just head to ask-bc.com and fill out the question form there. If its glossy luster, metallic, pretty easy, because basically its a pretty thin paper. Next time on the show, Renee will be back to offer some tips on ongoing printer maintenance that will help keep your printer running, so look out for that show by joining our mailing list or subscribing to AskBC on iTunes. Its really cool, I read his blogs and hes got great articles on his website. So lets just talk about the two basic methods of mounting. Ill try to send some pictures to explain it. Well, somebody orders something else, I can take that mat, open it up and pop that print right out and pop another one in. Are you kidding me?. That distance is critical. You may want to do two inch strips. I have certainly done that mounted all kinds of papers. I have a feeling its not a Canon paper. So subsequent prints as the printhead moves across those, there may be scratching or scuffing. Every printer is different of course and has all these strange settings in the driver menu. So, really cool to see a company put that kind of effort into things like, you know, print quality and print permanence. If you leave, this is why people get these streaks and these problems. Justin: Right. Thanks for listening! Pull it out of the package they sell it in packages. And Im going to ask some questions here and give some possible answers, but I invite him to leave some comments on Disqus when this is up, and let us know what paper hes using and address other questions, and Ill get back and answer him. You can upgrade to the Pro-10 or whatever and its slightly more expensive and it comes with the pigment inks. So one thing I want to start with off the top, for people that are considering buying a printer, is that you have to understand there are many differences between the what we call enthusiast-level photo printer models, and true professional inkjet printers. So theres other ways besides the mylar strips. But basically, the removable method is best for conservation purposes, and I know Ill probably get a lot of flack Oh now, I still dry mount. I mean, framer shops love their dry mounts. But one thing I do want to say when hes talking about the problems with the leading and the trailing edge, this is really common and it depends on the border youve allowed around the image. Theyre pre-hinged. Justin: Right. Renee suggests the unscented Swiffer Duster to remove fibers before printing a tip she picked up from Jon Cone. If youre doing a tiny print, maybe you want to cut one inch. Its going to do much more than cause streaks. So all of the inventory I had in the bins thats expensive mat board. Want to dive deeper into the subjects discussed in this episode? But Amazon has them. Theres usually a suction device under the capping station that will suck any extra ink thats left after the print is made, but, you know, you want to keep it moist and dry. It has very archival-quality, or, I would say conservation-quality materials, and they have these great, clear polyester strips and theyre basically come in a box theyre about four inches long, so its clear archival polyester, and its attached to two-ply conservation board with an adhesive backing, and you can cut them to size as you need. And because I use these strips, thank goodness, they just pop right out. But, first of all, in terms of why the prints not lying flat before I get into the meat of ityou know, the prints have to fully dry before you mount so that could be causing the print to curl or not lie flat especially if shes in a humid environment. A lot of people run across a lot of the same questions, and to be able to address them in one centralized place like this is it really is just fantastic. A Swiffer Duster?. And well talk a little bit about what that can do. And whats most important that we talk about many times is, on a Canon, what we call the head height or the Platen gap on the Epson, and thats the distance between the bottom of the printhead and the surface of the paper. Not just dust it off, but take a look at it. Sort of like Goldilocks you dont want it to close and not too far away. So its actually affixed to a rigid substrate already? If youre using, especially pigment ink, that stuffs going to dry and theyre like little pieces of sand is the best way I can describe it. So, but if its a third party paper, the media type you selected is important, and weve gone over this before both in articles and podcasts on where to find this information on the Breathing Color website. That youll have to use like a dry or cold mount to do that. Now, the pro lines, we consider those that start at 24 wide and up, theres actually a vacuum suction mechanism in place, and you can set the paper suction that will hold the paper flat as its fed through the printer, and that really helps prevent head strikes. Innovating new products that just better and better, the prints that you can get from these digital inkjet printers, you know, making 10% print quality increases through our custom inkjet coatings is just so interesting to see how much chemistry and science goes into these things, and how much work we put into innovating these products. Have some feedback for us? You can either use a very high-quality drafting brush that has very soft bristles be careful, you dont want to use hard ones that can scuff the print but one of the tips I read online that I hadnt considered and this came from Jon Cones website, he uses a Swiffer Duster. Research printers carefully. Ive seen some dry mounted and they look mottled. I have tried using only mylar tabs, but then the print does not lie flat. I allow 48, and Im in a dry environment. First of all, if you get good, conservation-grade mat board, its very expensive. I see a lot of people online still doing either cold mounting or dry mounting which we used in the dark room days. Prefer to read over listen? This one comes from Bob Belas from Bob Belas Photography. And if youre using roll paper and she didnt say whether these are sheets or coming off a roll you may want to invest in a device such as the D Roller (that we did talk about in prior podcasts). Also, Lineco makes a great self-adhesive linen hinging tape. And I also want to talk about what that will do over time to the printhead and other printer parts. Renee: Definitely. Missed ya! Obviously you have inventory left. Its 2 emails a week and you can unsubscribe at any time. Its important theres enough border around the edge of the image that will prevent the head strikes. Because youre not, you know, alternatively people use large archival photo corners. Dye inks were obviously had a wide gamut and were saturated, its not so. Here are the notes Renee provided us on archival mounting strips and working with heavy cotton papers. Renee: It is a little extreme, but that just shows you much I dont and I know theres people that love doing that, you know. Maybe a friend or colleague that would also benefit from the content we release. I know this can be controversial people are going to have opinions on what they think works best. They have alpha cellulose, which is pigment and acid-free, and then the all-cotton conservation board. Renee: So that should be pretty simple. Well, what does that mean? But the more you have fibers and the more you have extra ink due to your head height or platen gap not being properly set, its too close, those will get contaminated and cause subsequent problems. And basically, on a final note, I would just recommend that people stay away from printers with dye inks, and quite frankly Im really surprised this printer came out in 2012, and Im really surprised Canon was still releasing printers with dye inks. Its great, it makes the print lie perfectly flat if youve got a good professional machine. But thats what Id say for that. But its really best for conservation purposes to use a method where the print can be removed later and remounted if necessary. The client maybe, I dont like this frame, I want to reframe it. Maybe they want a colored mat, not an off-white mat. They come in a box of sixty and theyre four-inches long you just cut them as you need them. Anything can happen. So basically only the polyester strip which is see-through is going to touch the print itself. Depends on the weight and thickness of the paper. But thats another way to do it. Im looking at them right now. So that makes it really archival, and holds it in place. If theyre not removed in the first place, ink cannot be laid down youre just going to get a white glob. So you want it up against the edge, but you dont want to be pressing really hard on it. Hows it going? Theyre great. Renee: Yeah, I used to use the self adhesive linen tape, and then one somebody told me about these I was like, Wow! Justin: Yeah, I havent actually, no. So Ive been with Breathing Color for about three years now. Renee: Its because youre not for one thing, theres not enough white border. Just so fantastic to be able to bring that type of experience to the table and share it with people that have similar interests and start up these conversations, which are just so content-rich, and so important, you know. These fibers can get dislodged from the print head and drag across the surface of the print leaving marks as you see. What do you think Marys problem is here? So lets jump into my interview with Renee Besta and see if we can offer some solutions for them. What a lot of people dont know, with head strikes, and with these fibers they do tend to, theyre going to collect on the bottom of the print head over time and that can cause multiple issues. And its actually great! We do this podcast to help you guys become better printmakers at the end of the day, as well as have some fun troubleshooting the kinds of unique problems youre bound to run into as an artist, printer, or photographer, whatever you might be into. Of course that option you have to have an option thats available in the OEM driver. But one thing that may really help him I wanted to point out I did download the manual for this printer. I hope you enjoyed my discussion with Renee Besta. Well, that would definitely be any heavy cotton paper. And if you want to be the first to know when we release new content, hit that button on the sidebar that says Subscribe Now and youll be added to our mailing list and receive our new content the moment its published. Pop it right back in, youre done. If you click on that, you get another window and theres an option that says, Prevent paper abrasion.. I love it. I use products from Lineco you may be familiar with those. Renee: Yeah I hope thats helpful for her. Again, when third party paper companies like Breathing Color, could be anyone, make a profile for their paper, they will tell you what media type to select. And Ill get into that in a bit. What happens if you have not increased that gap for a fine art cotton paper. Theyre called see-through archival mounting strips.. If youre not familiar with Breathing Color as a company maybe you found the podcast on iTunes or from a web search or something, like I said, were an Austin-based company, and we have distributors throughout the world internationally and we also sell through B&H and Adorama up in the Northeast Coast. The most important thing that museums and galleries look at is what if somehow, eventually, youre selling something to a buyer the mat gets damaged. Renee: Thanks for having me back. Theres a difference between a nozzle thats completely clogged, and one that can be partially clogged. Or, I used to use a drafter brush, I found one with the softest bristles I could get, but, you know, if youre using a glossy paper and then you run more of a risk that youre going to scuff, you know, the surface of the print. He could buy Hahnemuhle, he could be buying Canson or Ilford paper, I have no concept. Justin: Yeah thats awesome. The same types of problems two of our listeners recently had, actually. That material can fall off, the dried ink, and you just have this residue on there over time. And you want to be sure when youre mounting it I cant really tell because shes saying shes seen some that are dry mounted. Were back! But, theres other issues people dont think about. So the Swiffer, get a Swiffer Duster. The self-adhesive hinging tape works fantastic. Its kind of like that when you think of the ink spraying if that nozzle is not totally, completely clear, the ink will deflect. Readymat is fantastic its in Northern California. This Canon is a sub-$500 printer, so its going to have far fewer features and you have to remember with certain printers, you may be limited as to what papers you can print on. How have you been? And again, this all goes into what I said at the beginning. Ill just go ahead and provide you some links. And I thought, What? Renee: That I would recommend he check the Prevent paper abrasion box. But, for instance, there is one company whom I will not name, that for their cotton paper, says Pick the matte photo paper media setting. So lets start with that second issue, the fibers that are sticking to the surface. The glass breaks on the frame. Renee: So thats great to dust the paper off. Is it a Canon OEM paper? If it is a Canon paper, then hes going to have an ICC profile available and all of the settings in the printer driver would be automatically configured including the media type. So thats important. If its third party. Love the show? You should always examine your paper. The reason that this company picks matte photo paper is they can therefor get around this size and margin constraint and Canon put that margin constraint there for a reason. Ill send you actually, you can go to Lineco.com they sell a lot of Lineco products at Aaron Brothers you probably wont find them at Michaels. So be careful with that. You can find out more about her and check out her awesome photography by visiting renmarphoto.com. Or categories. Justin: Hey Renee, thanks for joining the show today, its great to have you back here again in 2016, finally, for our first episode of 2016, actually. But the metallic is, you know, its really light weight. So I went out and said, Hot dang! and got some of those and it works wonders. Renee: It really is, it used to be a course in the early years of inkjet printing there was a huge difference in the gamut. So, I dont know how many shes using on each dimension. So yeah, highly recommend the removable method. But, if you have white cotton fibers, or dried ink on the bottom of the printhead, thats going to end up on that capping station, so the next time the printhead goes it picks some more stuff up and drags it across the next print. You know, different tastes. Renee: Its going great, Im really thrilled to be back. It just slips right out from under the mounting strips the little flap, its like a little flap, just holds it in place. But this Canon user manual states that for that manual feed tray itll take up to a 23mil paper. He wrote to us asking, I have a devil of the time getting perfect prints on heavy cotton fiber rag paper with my Canon Pixma Pro-100 printer. But the mat is expensive. Its frustrating, those margins are killer. So lets just say Ive got stuff Ive already got mounted, or maybe mounted and framed. Theres whats called permanent, and whats called removable. That matte photo paper, if you look at its thickness for this company, its half as thick as a regular heavy cotton paper, so what youre doing, in essence, is giving instructions to that Canon printer, Oh, Im going to run a 12mil paper. Thats what to expect. For instance, I had material left-over when I left my local gallery here in Paso Robles its Studios on the Park. Renee: Yeah, so I would always leave adequate margins. The p800, you have the option to add that on. I dont know its weight or thickness. Thats all I can think of, because I have and I will take pictures, Ill go ahead and do that, because Ive got metal prints or, prints on metallic paper, that are mounted and matted. And then make sure the window mat just covers the white space. Perhaps that make and model printer cant accept papers of great thickness. So then your color is going to be off, you can have spraying on the print, all kinds of issues. It depends on the weight of the paper. It damages the mat. Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with that? Carrie Servos Coats Allure Metal Prints with ArtResin Epoxy, Removable mounting practices save you money, An unexpected tool to remove particles and fibers from prints on cotton paper, The dangers of leaving particles on paper before printing, Head height issues when printing on thick papers, For conservation-grade mats and mounting and framing supplies, Renee recommends, The mylar strips mentioned in the episode are available for purchase, For holding prints in place while mounting and matting them, check out the, For more on how to configure your printer settings to use third party papers, youll definitely want to take a close look at Renees.