One of my latest customer who bough my print printed using carbon pigment
inks wrote me this:
It seems more delicate than the B&W print process of old!! You do know of
course that if you get these digital type prints wet it is ruined
altogether!
Frankly I never did this to my print. I am very careful with them as I was
with my darkroom prints before. So I handle them with care. Today I was
doing some cleanup and found some older test prints which were done the
same way. Cotton Rag paper and printed with carbon pigment. So I said let
see and let water in pour onto print with full power in my sink. When print
was totally soaked I softly move my finger over the printed surface. And?
Nothing I was amazed nothing somehow I expect that pigment will blur. So I
pressed harder and only when I really pressed I saw some blurring on edge
of print. Than I took small cloth handkerchief and try to dry surface just
brutally moving on surface of the print. There was no traces of pigment on
the cloth itself. I believe same brutal pressing and scratching wet surface
of classical darkroom print would have same effect.
So conclusion? You can pour water on my prints when they will dry they
will be same as before maybe little bit like wet paper, not perfectly flat
anymore, but image will be not touch. Even if you touch wet surface in
normal way, so not brutally hard you will see no effect on it. Only in very
abrasive scratching or brushing of wet surface you will see some effect,
but still only slight blurring of pigment.
Frankly I am positively surprised. That is one of more effects which
carbon pigment gave me to comparing with common dye inks.
