[Katherine Swift]

This question comes from David:

Perhaps I can explain my quandary as it pertains to lose of color vibrancy in an ink jet print on Epson paper coated with epoxy.
I’m using System Three Mirror Coat epoxy resin.
It’s a high quality 2:1 system.
The problem I’m having is very subtle and I wonder if there is even a solution to it or is it a built in aspect to all epoxy coatings on paper with imprinted as ink jet images?

Here is the quandary …as best as I can present it:
When I pour the epoxy over the image it becomes slightly darker, slightly less vibrant.
Is that an unavoidable factor?

[Katherine Swift]

Hi David,

Assuming the colors didn’t bleed, it could be one of two things:

1. I haven’t worked with that resin, but if it’s like other epoxies, blue colorant can be added to the epoxy to balance out the yellow of the hardener to get something clear. It could be that the blue and/or yellow is affecting the colors you see underneath from your papers.

2. It could be a ‘physics’ thing with how the light is being refracted. Imagine if you put a diamond in resin. It wouldn’t sparkle as much because the light passes through the resin, then the diamond. That may be what is going on here.

For me, I always get better results using color images printed on a laser jet printer. If you don’t have one, your local copy store may be able to print them out for you.

P.S. I know in your original email you attached some pictures. Our security filters didn’t let them through. If you can link to them in this discussion, I would be happy to look at them.

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