Matte paper suggestions?

[Harley Goldman]

I print with an Epson 4800, matte black ink. My current paper of choice is Moab Entrada Natural. I use Epson Enhanced Matte for proofing.

When printing B&W images, I find the Entrada paper to be much too warm. The whites are not white enough. I like the look of the Enhanced Matte, but I would like an archival paper and one that is thicker. I also use roll paper, a limitation that might eliminate some brands.


Any suggestions? I am guessing I will have to go with papers that have OBA to get the whiteness I am looking for.

[Ted Harris]

You might try Red River Aurora Fine Art natural. No brighteners,heavy and a white that I like but YMMV.

[Brian Ellis]

Somebody here or in another forum recently posted a message about another Moab matte paper that is supposed to be similar to Fine Art Natural but whiter. You might give Moab a call and ask. Epson Velvet Fine Art feels heavier to me than Moab Fine Art Natural and it's also whiter but I don't know whether it comes in rolls.

[Greg Lockrey]

It does.

[Walter Foscari]

Clayton over at digitalblackandwhitetheprint has compiled a nice list of papers. You can check them out at: http://www.cjcom.net/articles/digiprn5.htm

[Kirk Gittings]

For now......I have settled for now on Crane Museo Max for larger prints. It is warm true, but not that bad about like Enhanced mat, but this is a good thing because there are no optical brighteners to go yellow down the road. What you see in CMM is the whitest you can get a 100% cotton paper without optical brigteners. Anything whiter, regardless of what the manufacturer says, has optical brighteners. CMM has a very good dmax of 1.68-1.70 with Epson K3 pigments and comes in rolls and sheets at a fair price. My experience with it is that it is very consistent from batch to batch. It is the choice of many great printers that I know.

[Harley Goldman]

Kirk,

It that paper made for photo black or matte black? I run matte black in my printer and it costs quite a few sheckels to change over.

[eric black]

My paper of choice is plain old Epson Ultrasmooth Fine Art rolled paper (not the double thickness sheets) which I run using photo black inks (needed for the canvas and semimatte work that I do). I have my preferences set up on my 9600 to run it as enhanced matte using a profile I created using thoise settings which also convienently allows for auto cutting. Im sure the true blacks I get are not optimal but I cannot tell the difference and some of the work I do has quite a bit of black in them. The paper is a touch warm and I dont like it as much for the small amount of black and white printing that I do but find that color prints matted with an off-white museum quality matte and framed behind non-glare glass look great.

[Budmanvet]

My paper of choice is plain old Epson Ultrasmooth Fine Art rolled paper (not the double thickness sheets) which I run using photo black inks (needed for the canvas and semimatte work that I do). I have my preferences set up on my 9600 to run it as enhanced matte using a profile I created using thoise settings which also convienently allows for auto cutting. Im sure the true blacks I get are not optimal but I cannot tell the difference and some of the work I do has quite a bit of black in them. The paper is a touch warm and I dont like it as much for the small amount of black and white printing that I do but find that color prints matted with an off-white museum quality matte and framed behind non-glare glass look great.

While I have loaded and dropped the epson profile for ultrasmoothe fine art paper it does not appear on the list with all the other profiles when I want to print using it. Any ideas?
Bud

[eric black]

I used the settings for Enhanced matte (cutter enabled-against epsons recommendations but I havent had any problems), to make a profile for the ultrasmooth for situations when I am using the rolled material. I do occasionally print on the heavier sheet stock for which I use another profile that uses the settings for smooth fine art (cutter disabled). This method does require that you create your own profiles or the inking goes on too heavy. If interested, I could email you my profiles and settings and you could see if they work. Ill be back in my office next week-PM me if interested