Staining on Hahnemuhle Fine Art....

[robert lyons]

hi, recently i have been printing on hahnemuhle fine art paper and as with all my other prints (epson,ilford, and analogue type-c) i put them on my wall with magnets that are partially housed in plastic.....after about 5 weeks there has appeared a "bright yellow" halo in the areas where the magnets are in contact ....but only with the hahnemuhle paper...
my question has anyone else found these types of problems with this product? as it is a paper i really like and is quite expensive i am a bit reluctant to use it if it is prone to this type of staining/discoloration. thanks for your input...
regards,
robert

[Gem Singer]

Wouldn't it be more practical to discontinue the use of those magnets to hold the prints onto the wall?

Obviously there is a chemical reaction between the material that the magnets are made of and the coating on the paper.

[IanMazursky]

try to put a piece of thin archival paper between the magnet and the paper. Or an archival glassine should give you enough separation without direct contact.
Which kind of magnets are you using? I usually see the rare earth type that are encased in what looks like chrome. They have no long term effect on any of the papers including Harman.

[robert lyons]

thanks for your replies,
yes of course it is easiest to refrain from using the magnets and i can put a piece of paper to buffer the effect....i am wondering however what in particular causes this effect with this paper and not the other papers....as i would imagine the out-gassing from the plastic to be a problem with the other papers as well....also with the type c analog material.
anywhay, has anyone else seen staining with this paper in any form??? thanks
robert

[Bruce Watson]

Hahnemuhle photorag had problems years ago (4-5 years IIRC) with the adhesive in the tape used in the boxes for cut sheets. Turned the papers' inket receptive coating a fairly vivid yellow they said. I don't remember what caused the problem. Could have been just a pH thing, or a more interesting chemical reaction. And sadly I don't remember what the resolution was either.

Do some searching on the 'net, and search the archives in the yahoo group EpsonWideFormat and you'll probably turn up a bunch of posts on this topic.

[Tyler Boley]

HI Robert, the plastic around the magnets is outgassing something that the ink receptor coating is taking in and yellowing, it's not actually the paper itself. Even the roll clips that come with Epsons, coated with plastic, yellow some of their own papers.

Interestingly a lot of UV exposure will bleach this particular kind of stain back out.
Bruce is right, there has been a lot of discussion about this on various forums, and I'm sure hahnemuhle would have something to offer on the subject as well if you contact them, they are aware of the issue.
Tyler
http://www.custom-digital.com/

[robert lyons]

thanks tyler and bruce....it is kinda what i thought....but as a former photographic conservatorit makes me think twice about a product when it is so easily prone to the affects of ott-gassing...this has taken place in a matter of a few weeks....regards,robert

[Tyler Boley]

Indeed, although I have to say after becoming aware of the problem and it's cause, careful handling has resulted in no problems with inkjet prints in ten years.
Unfortunately it's not limited to hahnemuhle, I've seen it on a number of materials and it can happen literally overnight, greatly accelerated by humidity. Even a pristene sheet that was exposed will suddenly show it after printing because the moisture of the ink going down got things going.
It's all too new, and our environment is changing as well. Here's someone you should be aware of-

http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/

Mark is doing important work there.
Tyler

[Archphoto]

If it is outgasing from the plastik coating use some cling film around them.
The stuff your wife uses for your food....

[jim kitchen]

The issue with Hahnemuhle paper, and possibly a few others, could be related to OBAs present within the paper itself, and the apparent inherent attraction to airborne offgas chemicals contained within a metallic contact point, the plastic, the magnet's paint and, or any interim metallic storage container, could cause accelerated yellowing, or yellow staining within the paper. It seems that baked enamel paints, which coat flat metallic storage containers, could be another source of the OBA paper's staining, too.

As a side note, placing a plastic wrapper around a magnet will not prevent the minute natural or man made contaminants from migrating to the paper's surface, because the plastic is a contamination source too, and the best advice, such as Tyler's, would be to protect and prevent the contamination source from coming near and, or in contact with the paper during the paper's lifetime. Archival knowledge is important, as I discovered in a previous post about the yellow stains with Hahnemuhle papers containing OBAs, where this knowledge regarding harmful airborne contaminants can affect every paper, so much so that many could find this staining issue and the image replacement costs unacceptable.

Having a practical and knowledgeable handling procedure is imperative... :)

jim k

[Tyler Boley]

Jim, I realize you got burned pretty badly by this issue some time back and are all too familiar with it. But I just wanted to add that before we got a handle on the cause I was seeing it in a variety of papers, including some with no OBAs like William Turner.
Tyler

[jim kitchen]

Dear Tyler,

Yes, I must agree that the staining issue was a big problem with several of my images, costing several hundred dollars to receive the damaged images, reprint, reframe, and reship the repaired images. I do realize that other papers without OBAs could be affected too, although this issue directly does not affect me now. However, I will continue to be suspicious about my paper handling chain, where a specific set of handling events could cause this issue to rise to the paper's surface, and where the issue could be my handling procedure, my conservator's framing procedure, or the owner's viewing environment. OBA contamination propagated by airborne or surface reactant pollutants, may be just one of the combined culprits. I also agree that we should continue to investigate the cause of this issue, by assisting Mark, and his project.

jim k