Can you dry mount platinum prints?

[Daniel Schmidt]

Can platinum-paladium prints be dry mounted? How about cyanotypes?

I like the look of drymount presentation with space between the edge of the dry mounted print and the overmat.

I just want to know if the prints will survive the process. I think everybody has already taken sides of the general issue of whether to dry mount or not.

-dan schmidt

[sanking]

Yes, you can dry mount Pt./Pd. prints, but most people don't do it except for prints on very thin vellum papers.

But dry mounting will not harm the image.

[Mark Sawyer]

While not certain, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a color shift after going through a hot press. I used to make uranium prints, and found that for those developed in silver nitrate, there was an extremely pronounced, predicatable, and attractive color shift after flattening in a heated press. 20+ years later, it seems unchanged.

[robert_4927]

Now I have been printing in platinum for quite a few years. My question is why would you even consider dry mounting? Why stick fly paper to the back of a perfectly good print? Take a print that will last 500 yr. and turn it into a print that will last 50 yr. Now that makes a lot of sense. If you are using the right paper then this question should have been never asked.

[Donald Hutton]

Robert

There are a lot of people out there who find the "dry mounted/no overlapping overmat" look very appealing - there's no better reason to dry mount any print then if that's what people want to pay for.

[Scott Killian]

Robert,

"Take a print that will last 500 yr. and turn it into a print that will last 50 yr..."

This isn't exactly true. Most of the damage that happens to prints (aside from poor fixing and washing) is from gasses that attack the rear of the print or foxing along the edges. High quality mounting board does the best job of protecting prints from this, particularly boards which use the micro chamber technology from Superior Archival Materials. Accelrated aging tests have shown that these prints age much more slowly than loose prints or prints mounted using other "archival" methods.

[David Luttmann]

Yes Dan, those are the tests. They are 100% accurate on Silver or pt/pd prints, but completely inaccurate on ink jet prints ;-)

[neil poulsen]

But with silver, we have dry-mounted prints going back decades. (A lot of us, for example.) I have some that go back to the 70's, and they appear to be no different now than when I printed them. (But, how would I know, although I think they would be affected asthetically.)

This isn't true with inkjet. (gliiiiceeee)

I wonder if anyone was forward-looking enough to conduct decades-long longevity studies on dry-mounted silver prints? It would be interesting to see the results. (Perhaps the LOC?)

[robert_4927]

I corner mount all my platinum prints on high quality acid free rag board and overmat with the same. My comment was directed at the archival properties of the dry mount tissue and its adhesive. Not at the mounting board. Of course the real reason I mount this way is because this is the way a few master printers I have worked with over the years has taught me. They seem to think that if you spend all the time and effort clearing a platinum print why introduce other substances back into the print. Kind of defeats the purpose. But I guess it would be a matter of personal preference. But I have seen thousands of platinum prints and not one was dry mounted using dry mount tissue. Hinge mounting and corner mounting works so well for a platinum print why would anyone even consider dry mounting? Besides, what happens if the mounting board gets damaged? Like my old photography professor use to say, "Damit Robert! do it how ever you want, you're going to anyway!"

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

They are 100% accurate on Silver or pt/pd prints

No they are not, the same Wilhelm that tells us that ink jet prints last 200 years said the same thing about RC paper.......We dont need Wilhelm to tell us pt/pd unmounted or monuted last at least 100 years, there are examples of them around. ;-)

[David Luttmann]

Robert,

I agree. I'm not a fan of introducing something to the back that could harm the print....especially when corner or hinge mounting works rather well.

Cheers

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

I believe Kim Weston dry mounts pt/pd prints, but Robert is right as with most conservation issues and particularly pt/pd the problems is not the metal fading but the paper that is used and cleared. Silver gelatin has a barrier of baryta to whiten and protect the silver gelatin, pt/pd does not. Introducing mounting glue into the paper fibers IMO is not a good idea. Personally I dont like the floating method with pt/pd prints as much I liked it with silver, if I want a clan border I just mask when I print, but to each is or her own.