Making photo's water resistant...

I have a i960 printer!! Love it!! Here's the senerio... I printed some pictures out and let them dry 24 hours (my standard procedure). Showed them to a friend and as he was looking at them and talking a drop of saliva landed on the picture... the ink instantly went away and there is a white dot there now. It was printed on Kodak Premium Gloss 8X10 paper. I took a piece of the sample pack of Canon paper out and messed with it and it did not seem to be as bad. Regularly developed photos would not loose color like that. It worries me now, I had hoped to be able to give clients pictures from the printer. Does the paper make a difference? Is there something that I should spray on them after I print them?

Thanks

The first thing that will affect how water resistent a pictures is the type of ink used. I think that you pinrter, the i960, is an dye based ink. Some ink jet printers are pigment based and some are a little of both.

The dye based inks are not very water resistent while the pigment ones are.

The type of paper makes a difference as it determins how, and how much of the ink is soaked up. The glossy papers are soak up the least and as a result the ink just dries on the surface.

As for some sort of coating you can apply to the paper after printing I have no experience with it. I have done some lamination of ink jet prints and that does appear to make them water safe.

what your are looking for ia a product from Krylon called crystal Clear, it will protect the phot from uv rays and moisture. there areother products that do the same thing.

There is a paper that I use that claims water resitencand that is Pictorico, you can find them at the link below. They use a ceramic filament whih absorbes the ink into the paper.

http://www.pictorico.c​om/