Cold Mounting: Something New to Worry About

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Ron Eggers

Ron Eggers

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
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For as long as I've been here, I've been raving about Crescent Perfect Mount - particularly on their Super Smooth Board - as an alternative to heat-mounting glossy and/or heat-sensitive photos.

This morning I mounted what appeared to be a standard RC photo. As I always do, I put the release paper over the print positioned on the board and gently, but firmly rolled it with a brayer.

When I removed the release paper, a good portion of the image transfered to the coated release sheet and the print is ruined.

Understand, I do not consider this a product defect of the Perfect Mount. What it is, I think, is a new mounting problem - a medium that is senstive to pressure, but looks like an RC photo.

You might ask why I was mounting it at all. The customer bought it in Colombia and, in transport, it got a few creases. We talked about it and decided to cold mount it.

The customer will be understanding, but I think the photo will be irreplaceable. Just the other day I told someone on this forum that I would never dry mount something that's irreplaceable. I guess I should include cold mounting in that policy.
 
Ron, Do you suppose it would have happened with a heat press also? I'm assuming so since pressure is involved there too. I am starting to be more wary with photographs also. In particular since people tend to print their own these days. Who knows what kind of printer, ink or paper is used. But I still think most photographs need to be mounted so it is quite the conumdrum to say the least.

[ 05-14-2003, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: emibub ]
 
I'm sure it would have happened in MY heat press, since it is a Seal combination press. Perhaps it would have transferred the ENTIRE image to the cover paper and I could frame that. Maybe nobody would notice that the image is now reversed.

I may just start refusing to frame photos that are not premounted or in pristine condition. My preference is to hinge them behind mats but, as you pointed out, many of them really need to be mounted.

This reminds of the situation with counted cross-stitch. At one time, framers would routinely hand-wash a a customer's cross-stitch as a "service." Then the red flosses became less colorfast, along with any flosses that had red dyes - which seemed to include nearly all of them.

I wouldn't dream of washing a cross-stich now, and I'm not interested in any recipes for how to do it.

I'm going over to Warped to vent a little.
 
Ron should be commended for his honesty in
sharing this experience and the lessons he has
drawn from it. Even low value items that come from
abroad can be difficult to impossible to replace,
making them a hazard when a client requests that
they be mounted.

Hugh
 
One way to check wether a paper is really RC (or cibachrome) is to lay it on a piece of plexiglass. Is it sucks down to the plexi with a surprisingly strong static cling, it's the real thing. I will mount some things that way. Acetate photo corners on plexi. No heat, no pressure. It doesn't take creases out of things, but it sure makes them lay flat.
 
My customer came in and, as predicted, was very reasonable about it. As it turns out, it may be possible to replace the photo. If it is, I'll probably frame it for free.

If you're going to screw up a customer's print, is it better if the customer is a nice, understanding person who won't scream and stomp and threaten? You'd think so, but I'm not so sure.
 
BTW, anybody had any experience with thermal-wax or dye-sublimation prints? I'm still trying to figure out what this thing is.

My first clue that it isn't a conventional lab print should have been the size: 8 1/2 x 11. The sharpness and color saturation are such that I don't think it's some quick-and-cheap home job.

(Not that everything done at home is quick-and-cheap.)
 
We have a thermal wax printer. I'll try some tests on some prints. I'm not sure if I can get hold of a dye-sub print, but maybe I can sweet talk the local Kodak rep to let me have a few to experiment on. I do know that if you print something on the thermal printer then run it through your regular laser printer, you get an interesting offset effect on the wax image.
 
Ron, I had exactly the same thing happen with what I thought was a normal photo. Of course it wasn't, and in cold mounting with PerfectMount, I lost half the image on the release paper like you did.

My first thought was how to soften the blow to the customer and fix the problem. I called a professional photographer friend and he suggested scanning and cloning the problem parts. Since this was a hillside scene, I decided I might have a chance.

My first experience with the cloning tool in photoshop turned out pretty darn good and I then called the customer with the description of the problem and that I had a framed copy for her to inspect.

She was very good about it all and said it was indeed an inkjet print and that the scene, not the photo itself was the important thing. She was happy with the finished product and took the mismounted photo and release paper home to show hubby.

I have been asking a lot more questions about photos since but you just never know what you're getting yourself into when you say, "sure, we can do that!". :eek:

[ 05-15-2003, 09:06 AM: Message edited by: keiki ]
 
Ron-from your description of the mounting failure I'm thinking it may be thermal wax, but the extent of image transfer you report seems extreme. I've seem a few flakes fall off the paper, probably due to the media being contaminated when it was handled prior to printing. We've never had a problem cold mounting dye subs we produce in house but we use a different method--adhesive film is placed on the board and the print and board are passed through the unheated rollers of my laminator (without application of a laminate) at about 50 psi. Only other possibility I can think of is incorrect paper (incompatible with the printer) was used to make the print. The old Alps dye sub printers used two types of transfer ribbons. I think a special coating was on the paper used with the ribbon set to make the highest quality, dye sub print. Don't think the colors transferred well to "normal" paper.
 
Are you sure it's not a Fine Art Giclee?
 
Ron,

I'm thinking that perhaps your release paper wasn't perfectly dry.

We often use the Seal Colormount Coversheet for cold mounting with PMA on high gloss photos and Ilfachrome/Cibachrome prints. We have found that unless we pre-dry the coversheet in our dry mount press, the release paper will begin to stick to the image and leave it slightly "non-glossified". We think this is due to residual moisture in the release paper.

With a fragile image, this moisture adhesion might get extreme.
 
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