Printing on Watercolour Paper

[Smile]

The hairspray I use costs about 1.36Eur for 265ml bottle that can coat 10A3 size sheets. That's best price I've found, sometimes the spray is on sale for 1Eur so that it makes it cheaper.

If you want to coat the back side of the paper that will double the coating price. Still way more cheaper than fine-art inkjet canvas papers. Did I say it's more creative and anything involving more than press of a button is a plus in my book.

 

[3dogs]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the purpose of using watercolor paper for inkjet printing? I would guess that it would be for two reasons. One would be the texture and fine-art appearance of the paper itself, and the other would be the nature of the paper in absorbing the ink and creating a "painterly" quality of the image that includes the ink spreading a bit into the fibers of the paper. The attempt might be to duplicate, in some measure, the "soft" quality of water colors and the usual lack of "hard edges" of the images. I might try it sometime in the future but the difficulty of getting enough color saturation is something I'll let others work out first!

If @Smile is correct then that may be a shortcut to getting good ink performance.

My use of watercolour was prompted by @jtoolman because I already have a liking for the effect using matte paper...done well it creates SO much atmosphere. Unlike Joe I am not a fan of the painterly effect despite the fact that with the right subject its a real winner..

Cost is a factor as I print as big as I can. However, having tried the best Canson has to offer I displayed comparative prints on various matte media. Watercolour my way wins hands down most times, as does my other work horse Xerox iGen3 200gsm.
I would not be using either for family album prints, tho my personal archive is 100% WCP or Xerox.
At the end of the day we each make a choice that suits us best. I dont want to push what I like on anyone, but willingly help to get them the best result they can with watercolour paper for where their skills are today...its NOT an easy path by any means and most folks just will not get there.

 

[Smile]

Unlike Joe I am not a fan of the painterly effect despite the fact that with the right subject its a real winner..

The hairspray will solve this problem for you, just remember amount you spray onto the paper needs to be determined by trial and error, also we all can't expect to get same brand hairspray so this is also a variable. Just remember that usually cheapest hairspray without any nonsense will work best.

 

[jtoolman]

OK I bought some "Aqua Net" ( plain with nothing fancy added ) brand hair spray and treated several sheets of Canon Aquarelle With one coat and another with two light coats at right angles. Let them dry over night.
I then set up one edited image after setting a white and black point and mid points and saturation and sharpness in my normal routine.
Printed 3 prints with my ICC profile on PRO 3800 using MK and all other settings identical.
The untreated printed as I expected, Nice blacks and great color and areas where I set a white point printed as the paper border.

BOTH treated prints printed mottled!!!!
As if it had been printed on some of those older swellable papers that were not compatible with some newer inks. In other words, a bit of ink puddling was noted pretty much over the entire print.

The Winner? The plain Cason Aquarelle!
I was REALLY hoping for promising results and was ready to do a video on the process and share it with the world but maybe my choice of Hair Spray was not a good.

Then I though I would pre spray a sheet of it with KRYLON Matte UV spray which I would normally use after the print dries as a final enhancing step. Not artifacts but the contrast was lower that the untouched print.

Joe

 

[Smile]

You used EPSON PRO 3800 with pigment inks? I never tried it with pigment inks !
Perhaps that inks stayed on top of the paper and that would explain the "a bit of ink puddling was noted pretty much over the entire print".

Can you try with DYE type inks? I use OCP myself.

 

[jtoolman]

I will use it on my PRO-100 and see. I think that pigment inks might be the problem!
I'll get back tomorrow.

Joe

 

[3dogs]

OK I bought some "Aqua Net" ( plain with nothing fancy added ) brand hair spray and treated several sheets of Canon Aquarelle With one coat and another with two light coats at right angles. Let them dry over night.
I then set up one edited image after setting a white and black point and mid points and saturation and sharpness in my normal routine.
Printed 3 prints with my ICC profile on PRO 3800 using MK and all other settings identical.
The untreated printed as I expected, Nice blacks and great color and areas where I set a white point printed as the paper border.

BOTH treated prints printed mottled!!!!
As if it had been printed on some of those older swellable papers that were not compatible with some newer inks. In other words, a bit of ink puddling was noted pretty much over the entire print.

The Winner? The plain Cason Aquarelle!
I was REALLY hoping for promising results and was ready to do a video on the process and share it with the world but maybe my choice of Hair Spray was not a good.

Then I though I would pre spray a sheet of it with KRYLON Matte UV spray which I would normally use after the print dries as a final enhancing step. Not artifacts but the contrast was lower that the untouched print.

Joe

I was suspecting that @Smile was working with Dye ink....when he said that the hair spray coated paper got brighter....that is the dye being delayed or at least encouraged to dry closer to the surface and not so much of the carrier medium being wicked away.

 

[jtoolman]

I have two sheets of paper Hair Sprayed and drying over night ready for the PRO-100!
We'll see!
Joe

 

[jtoolman]

OK folks I printed one CASON Aquarella sheet of paper treated with Aqua Net Hairspray and one without treatment.

I so no discernible difference between the two when printed on my CANON PRO-100 dye ink printer
The prayed one still sown some artifacting form the droplets of hairspray. I assume that you would need to be EVER so smooth in the actual act of spraying. I found it to be more of a hassle than a benefit.
The paper would also curl excessively during drying.
Maybe the bottle's sprayer does not provide sufficiently fine spray as I so that it was depositing large dropplets of H Spray onto the surface of the paper. Which was immediately absorbed like a sponge.
Light coats would not coat the surface 100%. One would literally have to saturate the paper in order to insure complete coverage and that would not be conducive to a perfect printed finish. Mottling will occur whether it is with Dye or Pigment inks.
At any rate it was a good exercise and I learned something from it.

I find that due to the very heavy texture of this paper you are better off printing large!!! The minimum I would print is 12 x 18 and preferably 17 x 24 after trimming off one inch form the side of the 18 x 24 sheets.
Then the surface texture is not such an issue. If fact it becomes as asset. Small prints will lose detail since the paper is highly absorbent and has high dot gain. So the larger the better.
My large prints look amazing. My 8x12 ones do not so much!

Joe

 

[The Hat]

@jtoolman have you tried coating this paper with Glop using your printer, instead of hair spray, it would certainly go on much smoother and have better overall coverage..