(Note – this is cross-posted at the VoxPhotographs blog)
Sometimes the simplest items can make your life so much easier. If you are doing digital printing with glossy or luster prints (or having someone do those sort of prints for you), you may have noticed some complications compared to the matte prints that most of us used previously. Two things that seem to come up quite often are:
1) How do I sign this – the pencil doesn’t work!
2) Why is the print so curly? How do I get it flat?
Well, there are solutions to both of these problems – one very inexpensive, one not so much.
For signing these glossier prints, the solution is straightforward. Pencil doesn’t really work, so you need to use pen. Most pens (including Sharpies), however, are in no way archival and you don’t want to bring questionable elements into an archival fine art print. The solution? Archival pens. The only such pens that I know of are the Sakura Pigma Micro pens, which should be available for a couple of dollars each at your local art supply stores or online at places like Dick Blick. These pens use pigments inks similar to the inks used in the Epson, Canon, and HP high-end printers.
I use the black inks and the 02 thickness – too much smaller of a point and I find that it doesn’t write smoothly, and too much larger of a point I find to be distractingly visible. Try some out yourself and see which one works best for you. I wish we could just use pencil with these lovely new papers, but the Sakura pens provide a great archival alternative.
As for how to get these papers flat, the answer is equally simple but unfortunately much more expensive. If you buy sheet paper this likely won’t have been a problem for you, but if you use roll paper, you likely will have had to deal with severe curls at some point. One solution that has worked great for me is known as the D-Roller.
What is the D-Roller? Well, it is hard to describe. Basically, there is a long metal rod with a plastic sheet wrapped around it many times. You roll out the sheet, place your paper in there, and roll the whole thing up tightly, and then unroll it. Your paper, no matter how bad the original curl was, will come out flat. Completely flat. Here’s a photo of it in process and you can find a review (with video) at the Luminous Landscape site:
For the life of me, I can’t figure out how this thing works from a technical standpoint – it is clearly some sort of magic. But work it does. I’ve tried stacking up weights on the paper and other homemade solutions, but nothing works as well or as quickly as the D-Roller. So, if you use a lot of roll paper and have problems with curling, I highly recommend buying one of these. One great vendor for buying this is Shades of Paper – here is where it listed on their website.