Hoorah! @brok09, I finally found an inkjet photo paper that works well with transfer paper masking. Tearing is eliminated, and I can firmly roll the masking to avoid burn marks.
This cuts the effort in half, and makes the process a lot more reliable. It’s early days, but I think I’ll rarely have to deal with failed pieces any more, nor inspect all of the pieces individually.
As a bonus, the edge charring is much lower and I’m going to say goodbye to the salt tumbler!
The trick, apparently, is to choose a cotton-based “art paper” instead of any paper labelled as “photo paper”. This is the one I found (Promaster Fine Art Inkjet Paper). Compared to Canon matte “photo paper”,
- It’s softer in appearance and feel
- The cut lines are slightly less visible
- The contrast isn’t as great. (May depend on printer settings. Blacks aren’t as deep, but still it’s much better than Fuji “Deep Matte” prints.)
I’ll update the tutorial when I get a chance.