Alternate processes - problem with Arches Platine Roll paper

[Dan Dozer]

To start off, I'm a bromoil printer and use FOMA liquid emulsion, but perhaps you guys who do other alternate processes might help. I recently purchased a large roll of Arches Platine paper. I have always used Arches in the past purchasing cut sheets and this is the first time I've gotten a large roll. I've been using Arches for many years, and it has performed great for bromoils for me using liquid emulsion. I also used to use it back when I did Platinum/Palladium printing. However, this new roll is exhibiting problems I've never seen before. There appears to be density issues with the paper and I'm wondering if they use a different process for their large rolls. You can see from the one photo where I turned a light on behind the bleached/tanned matrix where there are a huge amount of white spots appearing.

The white spots show up when the paper is wet but they pretty much disappear when the paper dries. After bleaching/tanning/fixing, a lot of gray spots appear where the largest of the spots are, but they also disappear when the paper dries. However, when I try to ink it as a bromoil, the ink doesn't coat on the spots the same as the areas around it and the result is a number of lighter color spots that happen where the worst white spots were. I can sort of get the light color spots to get covered up, but not without numerous drying/re-inking sessions.

You can see the close up in the other photo in the lower left corner after the first couple of layers of black ink where the light spots are. This seems to be a problem where the spots (thin areas) are soaking up water through the back of the paper much more than the rest of the back of the paper that is getting more water into the gelatin and inhibiting the ink from fully going onto the matrix.

Any ideas from you guys using other processes?????

[Greg]

Although manufactures claim that their roll paper is the same as their sheet paper, I beg to differ when it comes to alternative processes. My experience has been that roll and sheet paper prints made with an Epson Archival ink printer match. For roll and sheet prints made using alternative processes... all bets are off. For alternative processes I only use sheet papers.

[fatherdougal]

I had the same issues with paper (sheets) from Bergger, made by Arches, in one batch I used a couple of years ago. Unfortunately it seems like a recurring issue because of some production step.

[esearing]

Maybe the rolled paper needs more air exposure time before you start your process. I would imagine their flat sheets likely start out from the larger rolls. Also - do you size your paper before coating with the emusion?

[Dan Dozer]

I've never had to size the paper before so not sure what the issue is this time. I tried soaking in water an uncoated sheet of the paper and didn't get the white spots. So, it seems to be something with the adhering of the liquid emulsion to the paper that's going wrong. Don't think it is the emulsion - it's not out of date. I guess I'm going to have to coat a couple more sheets of paper to see if it happens again.