Printer paper problem

[U/W Photographer]

I have just purchased a box of 50 A4 sheets of "Innova FibaPrint White Gloss" the paper was so tightly shrink wrapped that all the paper is curled up & bowed (I have had them sat under a weight of books overnight but they are no better) also the corners on five of the sheets are so badly damaged that they are unusable.

Professional quality printing is all new to me, but this can't be the norm, is it?
Any help & advise would be appreciated.

[lnbolch]

Take it back to the store and you should get your money back.

Print curling is generally much less of a problem in the digital darkroom than it was back in the fume-room days. Since emulsion was coated on paper backing, it would expand and contract depending upon humidity. Since ink jet paper is sometimes coated as well, I could see the same thing happening.

It can also be a major problem when printing on roll paper. It takes ages to flatten, unless matted and mounted.

[U/W Photographer]

I have received a email from the store I purchased the paper from, this is what they said about the curling.

"Firstly, in common with all digital fibre/baryta papers, curling is not unusual and is not because of the shrink wrap. These fine art papers with a matt paper base absorb condensation on the coated side, leading to the curling. Books and other stuff won't cure the curling but there are two simple cures.

Put the paper on a piece of damp cloth with the coated side facing up. This introduces moisture to the back of the paper and induces a reverse curl.
Even simpler and quicker ... manually reverse curl the paper before printing.

Both these procedures are unfortunately a bit of a pain but unfortunately this is the nature of these papers. As you have already experienced, any upward curl results in head strikes (the printer head striking the cusp in the paper) and results in ruined prints. Downward curls are no problem."

I would be very interested to hear your comments.

[bez]

You may well have an oldish box of paper, as Innova have recently addressed this problem (which is fairly common to all FB papers) with a coating on the back of the paper.

Trying to flatten it under weights doesn’t really work, so possible remedies are to carefully bend back the sides, and especially the corners of each sheet by hand before feeding it in. You can’t really bend it too far, as convex to the printing side is ok, but concave leads to serious problems, like head strikes.

The other remedy is to make yourself a de-curler (or you can buy one for £200!) by taping a large sheet of stiff paper to a length of 1½ plastic waste pipe – unroll on a flat surface, place paper face down, and roll it up; hold for 30 secs, then unroll.
Even better is Ikea’s £6 plain white stiffened cotton roller blind, because unlike paper it doesn't have a 'memory' and wont keep rolling up on you once you've used it a few times ... and don't worry about any very slight ridges across the paper; they'll disappear once it's been through the printer.
This device is also useful for de-curling roll paper after printing.

[ksporry]

this is actually a very useful ip! I'll remember this one...

[gcrogers]

I second k's comment, thanks for the ideas Bez. Clever, practical, and economical.

[bez]

Sorry, forgot to mention - if you do buy the Ikea roller blind the central metal tube is a little too thin, but it’s attached with some double-sided tape, so peel off carefully and re-attach to the 1½” plastic waste pipe.

Also make sure you have a couple of turns of the fabric (or paper) on the tube before rolling it up with the printing paper inside, to cover the taped ridge.

[poah]

I've never had a problem with the innova papers, they seem to be the only ones that have never given me strikes. I reverse bend all the FB papers just in case paying poarticular attention to the ends. I store the paper upside down to the way it arrives which helps reduce any further curl.