Using distress inks with Computer printed digi images

I've had several people ask me how I manage to use distress inks with computer printed digi images. I've emailed a few but decided it would be easier to do a tutorial.

There are several things you can do to prevent the computer ink from running.

1. Print out your image on draft, or quick copy as it is on my computer.
2. If you forget, as I frequently do, you can run it under the tap and sluice off all the excess ink, pat it dry with a kitchen towel and leave to dry for a little while.
3. You can heat set the ink with a heat gun
4. You can also print your images in advance and leave them a few days for the ink to set. Not a good idea if you are impatient like me.

I printed out three images, two on normal print - one on draft/quick print. This photograph is one of each.

The left is the normal print, the right the quick print which is marginally lighter. Of the two normal print images, one I will heat set, the other I will 'wash'. 

This is the normal print when water or pale colour is added - the ink runs and I presume this is what you're all experiencing.

You can just about see the ink sluicing away when it is run under the tap 

I pat it dry with a piece of kitchen towel and normally leave it to dry for a couple of hours. For the sake of this tutorial I didn't wait and it wasn't completely dry.

I started adding colour to the images to give you a comparison. I tried to colour the three images simultaneously using the same colour depth, difficult as it is so hot the ink was drying as soon as it hit the paper.

1. The left image is the one that I heat set with a heat gun, I think the colours are muddier that the other two.
2. The middle image is the one that I 'washed' slight buckling here as I didn't leave it to dry long enough.
3. The third image is the quick/draft print one.You lose some of the line definitions when you start colouring but regain these as you start to add more depth of colour.

I would normally use a thicker watercolour paper (Fabriano Classico 5 - 300g/m or 140lb) than I have here but I'm desperately waiting for more to arrive.

Ideally to print the images well in advance is perhaps the best method, other than that try out all of these three and see which suits you the most.

Hope you find this useful and I have also been asked to do a complete tutorial on colouring with distress inks which I shall do using this same image, although I'm pretty sure there are better tutorials out in blogland than I will produce.