For all cotton and alpha-cellulose archival papers

° How to Handle Prints

Handling with bare hands is ok as long as you have cleaned, washed, and dried your hands. Sweat and moisture are the main sources of paper yellowing through the decades of archival papers. Cotton or Nitrile gloves are most ideal gloves to use for handling. The white border on every print also serve as a means to handle the paper.

If a print gets in contact with water or any liquid, DO NOT rub, wipe, or scrub the paper to remove the droplets. Roll a piece of clean tissue or cotton cloth into a ball and lightly tap the print with water to dry if not, flip the paper upside down and let it drip dry. Pigment inks used for archival prints are resistant to bleeding when wet unlike dye based inks (common desktop printers use dye).

° How We Recommend to Sign Prints

We highly recommend using archival ink pens for signatures or graphite pencils. For most matte papers, we find a Steadler 6B, 4B, or 2B works well, 8B works also but it loses edge too fast. For semi-gloss/gloss papers we recommend having Hahnemuhle signing pigment pens or something similar; Sakura Pigment pens. They’re a bit rougher feeling than most dye pens so we recommend practicing on a scrap paper or the backside if needed.

° How to Store Prints

Store prints in a relatively dry cabinet or box (40-65%RH) away from direct sunlight. It is best to have your prints framed with archival materials, both mat boards and back mounting boards, they are usually called “acid-free matting” by local framers. This will prolong the papers from yellowing. The yellowing of papers are caused by acidity transfer from non archival papers to your archival prints through the years.

For long term storage, store the prints inside the PE plastic bags that the prints came packed in :) away from sunlight and high humidity levels.

Specific papers

° Awagami Unryu 55gsm

For previous generation (2025 and earlier) dry mounted glassless works, please handle with care, avoid excessive humidity to avoid peeling. If peeling occurs, please reach out to us at hello@gentaartprints.com . For wet mounted prints (non-drymount) if buckling occurs, you may mist the print with distilled water and let it airdry. This kind of mounting works well for dry environments.

Dust prints with a light feather duster. Avoid direct sunlight to not accelerate UV bleaching of pigments inks.

° Hahnemühle William Turner paper

For loose prints, Please avoid sliding prints on top of each other, the grainy rough texture of Hahnemühle William Turner is easily scuffed off and will leave a white dot that is a permanent damage to the print as the pigment inks are designed to sit on the very top of the papers. Once framed under glass, itll last a long time.

°Hahnemühle Photo Rag

This paper has excellent matte coating on the surface that attracts ink with high efficiency which also makes It very susceptible against marks from dirty surfaces and finger prints. Wash and dry hands if it’ll be handled with bare hands.