Washi / Japanese papers for inkjet printing - experience?

[Leah Gordon]

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And I will check RK Burt!

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[Stuart Richardson]

3 minutes ago, Leah Gordon said:

Thanks everyone - I am leaving the separation to the printer - but will alert them to the difficulties! I'll post some of the final outcomes in a month or so's time!

As a printer, I will just say make sure you bring them some wine or cookies or flowers etc. Separating those prints is going to be a delicate and time consuming affair, unless the paper has changed substantially from when I tried it...the reason I would not take it on as a commercial job would be because I think the failure rate might be somewhat high, and needing to reprint large prints on expensive material will be both time consuming and costly. I don't want to rain on your parade. I hope that you find a way to do it efficiently, but I would make sure to give yourself and the printer lots of time ahead of any exhibition, just in case there are issues. You might also consider having a look at Kozo select, which is a 45gsm paper. It does not play well with the current generation of Epsons, but it is very thin and translucent when backlit, though I think it would be mostly opaque when layered over another sheet. You will be able to tell if there is a dark background or light background in the highlight areas, but otherwise probably not thin enough to see the details...at least I don't believe it would be.

 

[Leah Gordon]

For the interest of the people here - RK Burt call the Awagami Kozo Double-layered obsolete - but in fact they have just stopped selling it as it doesn't sell well enough - so the only place to buy the rolls is direct from Awagami in Japan - which does cost £38 extra in shipping - Thanks Stuart for the heads up about the Kozo select - I am experimenting with methods of making it more transparent - but can you explain what is the problem with Epsom printers? Is the Kozo select uncoated? Does the ink bleed too much? 

[Stuart Richardson]

Thanks Leah. That is interesting to hear. I have bought direct from Awagami in the past and it has been just fine. You might consider buying some of their stationary at the same time since you are paying for shipping anyway. Their notebooks and small items are quite nice and reasonably priced for what they are, if I recall, but it has been several years since I bought them.

The problem with the Epson printers is a bit complex. The newest Epsons like the p9500 has a more sophisticated roll transport system that uses an additional powered roller while printing. So the old printer just had a single roller that pulled the paper through. That worked very well, but Epson wanted to prevent paper skew and paper wandering. So they added an additional roller that could move at different speeds and at different rates on the left and right to adjust the paper as it is going through so that it stays straight. That is all well and good for a thick, dimensionally stable paper like an art paper. But for very thin papers it can cause wrinkles or crimping. I have done very large prints from Kozo select (up to 220cm long) and I found that after a meter or so it would start pinching the paper and ruin the print. There is no help from either Epson or Awagami about this as I think few are dealing with it. The solution I found was to create custom media setting based off of Epson Velvet Fine Art, but then use the paper handling settings from Washi Thin. The most important of these is to turn off all paper size and paper transport correction options, and to put the back tension to Extra High Level 3. I did not logically think that back tension would help, as the wrinkling was parallel to the direction travel (i.e. perpendicular to the tension), but that is what did it.

The reason to use VFA is that Epson does not allow advanced black and white mode to be used with their Washi paper settings. This was a deal breaker for me, as I print black and white. I suspect it is because Kozo Select is so thin that a normal ink load wrinkles and warps the paper. This is more or less unavoidable, even if you dramatically limit the ink load, the effect of which is to have very washed out and dull prints that are still wrinkled. What I do instead is roll up the prints just out of the printer on a cushioned roller between sheets of interleaving paper, and the inherent tension on the roll flattens the print enough to make it more presentable. For smaller prints a heat press does wonders.

As you can see, these papers are really fussy. Trying to figure out and solve these issues ahead of a big solo show at the museum of photography literally sent me to the hospital with heart palpitations (the printer literally destroyed every print until I solved it), so it is not something I would take on for clients, but perhaps you can find a braver soul than I. I should say as well that I am kind of perfectionist about it, and more tolerant folk might have found an easier path through.

[Leah Gordon]

Wow - thanks so much for being so generous with the outcome your experiments and solutions - that is greatly appreciated - I am working with an enthusiastic team at Atelier-Ji near Woolwich - not sure if you know of them - I will check with them what kind of Epson printer they are using - BTW checked out your website and your work looks amazing!

[Stuart Richardson]

Thanks! Very kind of you. I think the fine art printing community is pretty small and supportive, as we get very little help from the manufacturers (or at least that has been my experience). They tend to be more focused on big print houses that just press print and only use Epson media etc. But those of us who take on the more difficult jobs tend to be motivated more by knowledge and curiosity than by profit. I certainly would want to spare anyone the experience I had, lol. I have worked as a printer for over 15 years, so when I had a large show I spent more time on the other issues and figured the printing would be a breeze, but these newer Epsons have been much less reliable for me than the P9000 was, so I wound up getting caught out and all of a sudden the "easy" part became the hardest part and my body decided it was not into it. All is fine though. I still have not quite decided whether to flee or fight my printer, however. It has the weight advantage.

I have not spent much time in the UK so I don't know Atelier-Ji, but looking at it it looks like you found an excellent partner.

[hansvons]

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22 hours ago, Leah Gordon said:

Wow - thanks so much for being so generous with the outcome your experiments and solutions

I can only agree with that.

[hansvons]

21 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

... so I wound up getting caught out and all of a sudden the "easy" part became the hardest part and my body decided it was not into it. All is fine though. I still have not quite decided whether to flee or fight my printer, however. It has the weight advantage.

Unfortunately, there is no heart emoticon.