Lumpy Photos

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Dave

Dave

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
Joined
Jun 11, 2004
Posts
13,355
Loc
Edwardsburg, MI
I've obtained a dealership in aerial photos of inland lakes and have had great success in selling the photos with nice framing...however, I've encountered a problem.

The photos I buy from the aerial graphics service come shipped flat because I buy enough at a time to warrant it. When the photo service sells through the lake associations as a fund raiser, they are shipped individually to the customer rolled in a mailing tube.

I dry mounted 10 photos yesterday (20X24) and two, ones that customers brought in in tubes) have a slight lumpiness after mounting. I flattened them out over night with weights, but they still had a slight curl when I mounted them.

I've tried putting them back in the press to flatten them out, but with no success. The lumpiness is minute, but noticeable to a discerning eye.

Anyone have any thoughts as to what I can do to alleviate the problem either before or after the mounting procedure?

Do you think it would help to put them in the press prior to mounting? Or am I stuck telling customers that this will be the outcome if they buy them from anyone but me... :D

Thanks.

Dave Makielski
 
Last point is a good one

Are you hot or cold mounting them?

low temp heat with an adhesive that bonds on the heating cycle usually does the trick for me.

After that the trick is matte krylon spray. What you really notice is not so much the "lumps" but the reflection of the "lumps". Get rid of the reflection, you get rid of the lumps. Then under the gloss surface of glass (with spacers or a mat) it becomes very hard to tell anything has been done.
 
Dry mounting in a Seal heat press at about 175 degrees with 3/16th" foam core and tissue for three minutes.

My local distributor suggested using Cool-Tak.

As last resort I'll try the matte Krylon, but the photos cost me 49-79 bucks apiece and I'd hate to screw it up.

Dave Makielski
 
Dave, You have a few unknowns:
What kind of prints are they? R/C photo? Ink-jet on photo paper?
What is the substrate you are mounting to? (I find that foam board will sometime dimple, and that the dynamics of the heat/pressure in the press change during an extended dry mount session)
What kind of mounting tissue?
Are you using a "Z" tack on the photos?

Purely speculative, but how is the quality of the paper the photos are on? Would rolling the photos somehow compromise the paper/emulsion bond causing delamination? How tightly are they rolled, and are they rolled with the image in or out? Any of these things can lead to problems in dry mounting.

Edit: I see you answered some of the questions while I answered the phone while trying to type...carry on.
 
Huh...I don't have that problem at all. What kind of paper are the photos on?
What do you mean...lumpiness. Is it like air bubbles?
I do aerial photography too, so it can be anything having to do with the flying, like wind passing between the photo and the foam core. :D
 
Is that anything like the wind passing between the pilot and the seat??
thumbsup.gif
:D
 
Lets be clear here.

1. If this from a fine dirt speck under the photo?

2. Is this from emulsion separation?

3. Is it your mounting board?

Lay the photo on a hard flat surface and run your hand over the back of the photo before you mount it and feel for invisible dirt. If found scrape it off carefully if needed.

framer
 
The photo paper is Fujichrome Crystal Archive paper. The tissue Seal Foto Flt. Conservation Tissue.

I believe it is caused more by an emulsion stress as the photos that were a problem were fairly tightly wound.

Dirt and/or humidity should not be a problem as the heat is on here in Michigan and if anything it's dry and the problem is across the entire surface. The "lumpiness" is quite slight and wouldn't show in a posted photo. In fact, I believe most customers would not notice it.

The image was rolled with the emulsion in. Would there be less of a delamination opportunity if rolled out? Good thought, in my past life in the art material industry, when rolling an adhesive backed film with a back sheet, you always wanted to roll the product with the film to the outside or bubbling could occur on the film...mm-mm

Again, the photos that were flat mounted beautifully.

Dave Makielski
 
QUOTE " I believe it is caused more by an emulsion stress as the photos that were a problem were fairly tightly wound"

sound about right, flat is better than rolled

here is another type of lumpy photo
Lumpy
 
Photos should NEVER be rolled. The emulsion can't take the stress. Some of the hardest restorations I've had to do have been to photos that were left rolled for a long time. The ones you get into mount soon after purchase aren't going to be too bad, but what about the ones that people leave rolled till they finally get time to have them framed? The aerial photo company should be informed that they need to change to shipping there photos flat.

Also, foamcore isn't the best media to mount a photo on. Besides the problems with foamcore denting easily, outgassing harmful chemicals, and being easily crushed, photos need a pH neutral mountboard. We mount all our photos on rag board. Crescent makes some rag boards specifically for this purpose.
 
Have you tried "static" mounting them using a piece of plexi-glas?
This a pretty new method.. but works very well on photos. You just take off the cover of your plexi and put the photo on it.. letting the static hold it in place.

-OwieO-
 
Haven't tried that, but am now having the aerial service ship everything flat. Take that back, they are first sending a phot reverse wound to see if that'll make a difference.

Dave Makielski
 
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