I have been a photographic printer now for over 30 years, the first 15 with the traditional photographic paper/chemical process and the last 15 with inkjets and photoshop. One of the biggest problems that you will run into is the handling of a fine photo. If you are working to mount it either dry or wet mount, the cloth you use to help with the process has to be free of any type of material that will scratch a print. This is especially true with a glossy or semi-gloss print as it seem that just the slightest rub will sometimes scratch a perfect print and send it to the trash can. Over the years I have used the static free brushes from Kinetronics for cleaning my print before and after I mount them. I also use these same brushes to clean my printers as a lot of trash seems to build up in and around the platen area of my inkjets. This trash will eventually fall onto the print surface. When this happens, most times the printer will print over the trash and when you wipe the print the trash comes off and then the ink. Another one hits the trash! But even worse, after you get a good print, is finding a cloth that will not scratch the surface of the print when you are mounting it. Enter the Panther cloth from Kinetronics.

The panther cloth is made from  a black, very soft, anti-static material.  I believe it’s about 10″ x 10″ when fully unfolded.  A single cloth from the company is $6.95 and you can purchase a box of (10) for $41.00 which is a very good savings on the single price.  As good as these clothes are I would recommend purchasing the box.  I was able to work with a 25″ x 45″ glossy print for a dry mount and the process was smooth and generated no scratches.  You can actually use these clothes to press down on the print as you lay the print down (I don’t use a dry mount press)  When I dry mount I  use a spray adhesive and then lay the print down, applying pressure as I do this.  During the process you need one hand holding the print and other to apply slight pressure over the print to help keep bubbles from forming.  I tested the Panther cloth in my dry mounting and found no scratches at all. [Read more…]