Epson Exhibition Fiber any experiences?

[Paddy McKay]

I'm doing some of my B&W prints on Epson's Exhibition Fiber paper, and really like it. Very substantial feel, and a beautiful "air dried" type surface. Printing with an Epson 2880. But,...this stuff is VERY expensive. I've tried the Ilford Gold Fiber Silk, but I'm not a fan of the feel/surface. (although I doubt this matters not for the viewer)

My current favourite is Moab's Colorado Fiber Gloss. Again, it has that wonderful "air dried" fiber gloss silver gelatin type surface, and a very nice thickness. Great for colour, and B&W,...and quite reasonably priced too.

[bob carnie]

I am using Harmon Digital Fibre on a RGB laser printer and processing in trays.
Basically the paper is Galerie G4 with an extended red sensitivity therefore no safe lights.
I find it looks much like Ilford MG4 and has the same toning characteristics.
Currently my favorite combination is a bit deeper print, then bleach sepia for highlights, direct gold for the mid highlight tones, and either selinum or iron blue for the shadows.
I only wish there were more photo labs going this route as it is a bit of a hidden secret. Right now I think there may be five of us in North America and another half dozen in Europe.

I have tried to mimic the look with Harmon Bartya gloss inkjet using a Cannon 9000 with some success , in fact we currently have a show up at our gallery that is all the wet prints and only one inkjet, I can see the difference and so to can the photographer, but over 800 people have viewed this show and I have not had one negative comment about that single image, or even that anyone has picked up on the deviation.* I think if I challanged good eyes to pick out the print , they would be able to.*

I have been beta testing the new Kodak rag paper and I can say it performs well with Hannamuhle photo rag, which is our go to paper for inkjet. Both have a lovely surface and texture and as others point out a different richness of blacks is seen.
I have never made a Cone Ink or piezography print so I have nothing to judge that process on , other than I have heard a lot of good things from other people.
Some day I will take the plunge and go to Vermont.

I much prefer the wet prints over any inkjets that I have seen , My preference is that wet digital matches my workflow with the enlargers and the prints I have been making all these years. I only wish I could get a semi matt surface like the old agfa paper to work on my laser printer.

With this paper good digital workflow is very critical . and as I learn more about this process , things that perplexed me a couple of years ago now make sense and we have learned how to manage this fragile process.

[ignatiusjk]

Has anyone tried Exhibition Fiber?

I have and it was ok.Ilford makes a similar paper that I thought had better blacks and it was also cheaper and available in smaller counts.

[Paul Kierstead]

The Ilford Galerie Gold Fiber Silk paper seemed to consistently show the best fine detail, and rendition of subtle color hues of all the papers on the color prints, and had a slightly cool but usually cleanest reproduction with the most subtle of shading levels on my B&W images.

This really surprises me. I just got some on the weekend and printed only colour so far, but the paper itself is very warm. I would be really surprised to get cool B&W. Do you think it is as a contrast to the paper colour or something?

[D. Bryant]

This really surprises me. I just got some on the weekend and printed only colour so far, but the paper itself is very warm. I would be really surprised to get cool B&W. Do you think it is as a contrast to the paper colour or something?

Last night I made test prints on the following papers:

Harman Fiber Gloss WT AL

Epson Exhibition

Ilford Galerie Gold Fiber Silk

Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta

All of which are included in the sample pack from Atlex.com.

The image I used wasn't the best one that could have been chosen as it had a very limited color palette. They were all made on the Epson 3800. In a lot of ways there were only very subtle differences in all of the prints not considering the paper surfaces and the paper base colors.

In all cases I used the manufactures supplied profiles except for the IGGFS which had a custom profile applied as well as the manufacturer's profile applied in two different prints.

In short I could probably live with any of the papers but I preferred the IGGFS and Harman WT AL for reasons that I can't articulate well. Mind you, this was a very limited comparison and I would take what I say with a grain of salt. But I would rate all of the prints as very good.

Recently I had a chance to look at some very nice color prints made on Harman Fiber Gloss AL and for my money it was the best looking of the bunch listed above, but the Ilford GGFS was a very close second, IMO.

Don Bryant

[dom]

Love it, best BW "Air Dry Fiber Look" I've seen yet. I ended up using it with the Quadtone RIP on my 2400, it has a lot more options than the Epson ICC and is an inexpensive (Free trial) RIP. Quadtone doesn't have a profile for it in the 2400 pull-down, or at least they didn't when I downloaded it. I think they have it for the bigger printers. I use the "IlfordSmooth" which seems dead on. I prefer a split-tone 70% Neutral / 30% warm as a starting point.

[steve_782]

Pixelography....

I came up with it and like it,

Sure you did...that must be why an Internet search shows 13,200 occurrences of the term...going back past 1996...

What else have you invented? Ice cubes...fire....light bulbs...?

[Greg Miller]

Has anyone experienced any out gassing issues with these papers?

[D. Bryant]

Has anyone experienced any out gassing issues with these papers?

Out gassing will always occur with inkjet prints. I believe Harman warns the user about this potential problem.

Don Bryant

[Greg Miller]

Thanks Don. I guess I am asking for real world experience. I have never had a real world problem with ink jet prints on matte paper, but I have with lustre type papers. So I am curious if people have had real world experience with these new papers to know what degree, if any, they need to manage out gassing.