If you are like me and buy a lot of posters each year or even if you buy one chances are you have come across an idiot who has packaged and shipped a poster in a triangle tube all but guaranteeing that it will be damaged or had something similar happen where the center of the poster got crushed. From experience it is a hard lesson to learn that although the damage from this crushing is irreversible without restoration it is made much worse knowing that just unrolling the poster with that crush area can actually and in many cases does make that damage worse. Receiving yet another poster damaged like this has made me think it would be good to share how I alleviate the risk of damage as much as possible in this case with everyone and hope it helps them if they ever need it.
1. I keep a small piece of PVC pipe handy for this and other work.
2. Take the pipe or something similar that is stiff and
longer, (insert joke here), then the poster.
3. On clean surface free of oil, etc. roll the poster slowly using the pipe with light to moderate downward pressure.
This will help alleviate the stress crinkles enough to unroll the poster without he worry of additional color breaks or the dreaded tearing that can happen as seen below.
