What kind of mat board for inkjet prints?

[claudiocambon]

Hey everyone,

What kind of mat board should I use on an inkjet print: unbuffered, as for traditional color prints, or buffered, as for silver prints?

Any advice would be great. Thanks!

Claudio

[Kirk Gittings]

Go to the Light Impressions site. They have some info on this. I think it is unbuffered for ink.

[Greg Lockrey]

I was always told that the purpose of the buffered matt board was to protect the paper from yellowing and not so much about protecting the ink. I'm going to be interested in what the concensous of opinion is going to be here.

[Kirk Gittings]

I can't find any recommendations on the LI site anymore, but an old catalog suggested buffered for ink prints.

[jim kitchen]

Folks,

You can find some information here: http://www.artfacts.org/standards/index.html

and more specifically here: http://www.artfacts.org/standards/expmmb_2000.html

jim k

[Bruce Watson]

What kind of mat board should I use on an inkjet print: unbuffered, as for traditional color prints, or buffered, as for silver prints?

Buffered. I've been using the ArtCare mat boards. (http://www.superiorarchivalmats.com/sam/index.html) I've been using them for about six years now without incident. As in nothing to report -- the mat boards, the photographs (silver gelatin, B&W inkjet, color inkjet), all of it appears basically inert in the Nielsen metal frames I use.

Superior Archival Materials has a big article on their website by Micheal Smith about the ArtCare boards. I'm not a Micheal Smith fan by any means; I disagree with him about most things. But he may just be right about these boards.

Oh, yes, the reason to use non-buffered boards with C-prints is that the image is made of dyes. These dyes can be influenced by pH. That means that a high PH board (most buffered boards are around pH of 9 or so) can cause color shifting of the image over time (gradually over a number of years usually). Silver and inkjet pigments aren't so effected, so the priority then shifts to protecting the substrate. Thus buffered boards.

[Greg Lockrey]

I learned something new about C-prints, thanks Bruce.

[claudiocambon]

Thanks everyone!!!! I appreciate it very much.

[bsimison]

Good info, thanks for sharing. I'm about to print, mat, and frame a show of both silver and pigment inkjet prints, so this discussion came at just the right time.

[Oren Grad]

I was scratching my head recently with a similar question about storage materials, until someone pointed out to me that many of the papers intended for pigment inkjet are themselves buffered. Check the specifications of your favorite papers.

[Jim Ewins]

At my age I don't give a damm. I don't care if it lasts another 20 years, I won't.

[jenn wilson]

essentially, use buffered mat boards only for black and white prints. the calcium carbonate is meant to neutralize any fixer residue. non-buffered board is used for basically everything else. long term storage of a c-print, inkjet print, textile, etc. in a set of buffered boards would eventually alter the colors.