Make sure that your prints dry properly

mikling

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I was asked today by someone who stated that their prints discolored overnight.
Well here are a few things to note about prints after printing.

First: LET THEM DRY
With the phrase bandied about about photo papers called "Instant Dry" there is no such thing. It is a lie. Plain and simple.
Read that again. What users really experience is that the ink seeps under the porous top coating and is no longer on the surface.
It is NOT dry yet. The print is dry to the "touch" BUT it is still wet under the coating. Quite so, if it is from an Epson printer that uses photo colors/Light versions of the colors.

Second: Let them dry for at least 24 hours if you are going to put them away in a sleeve or album etc.

Third: While drying, so not cover them. This includes stacking them. Let their faces be exposed as much as possible.

Experiencing DISCOLORATION
If you don't follow the above, you are going to likely experience color creep. The pictures will look murky and dark over time. They will look fuzzy.
The reason is that the dark colors which usually have more ink will be wet and will slowly seep across the other colors and they bright parts of the picture will become darker. It does not take much seepage for this to occur.

I believe these points are more critical to higher quality papers with their smaller and thus tighter pores.

Remember, the popular photo papers are called microPOROUS and nanoPOROUS for a reason. Their top coat is porous to allow ink to seep in and those pores allow moisture to escape and ink to dry. The small pores of these papers is what gives most mfrs the ability to call their printers waterproof and NOT moistureproof. The small pores stop water from entering but does not stop ink from entering. So don't get too caught up in the waterproof print. They are water resistant because the back side of the paper is not as water resistant nor the edges for that matter.
 
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