Epson Exhibition Fiber any experiences?

[Ron Marshall]

Has anyone tried Exhibition Fiber?

[davidb]

anyone ?

[Michael Gordon]

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/re...on-fiber.shtml

[Tyler Boley]

Yup, it's made for Epson by Innova, and is the UltraSmooth on a slightly thicker base.
Great gamut, great dmax, nice surface, but like a lot of other inkjet papers, the base has a lot of OBAs and is very blue, doesn't bother some people.
You'll find a lot of user reports on other forums, and the Innova as well. The image performance and surface is identical, but some find the thicker base physically less problematic.
Tyler

[ljsegil]

Atlex.com sells a very nice sampler pack which includes two sheets each of EEFP as well as Harman Baryta Gloss, Ilford Galerie Gold Silk, and Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta, unfortunately only in 8x11.5 size, but it still gives one some idea of the characteristics of the papers. They differ in sometimes only subtle ways, the Hahnemuhle being the most distinctive though not necessarily for the better depending on taste, and I do like them all to a greater or lesser extent. I used to print color almost exclusively on matte papers (I do almost all color work, so I cannot judge their B&W performance too critically, although on my first look it seemed fine), then on Museo Silver Rag, but these papers have converted me to their look. On my first attempts, I did not find the Epson to dramatically outperform the others, but I have ordered another sampler to try some more as these papers, especially the Epson, are substantial investments. So far I lean towards the Harman but have been pleasantly surprised by the Ilford, and very much look forward to my next sampler pack to try to sort things out further. So far my impression is that you can't go too far wrong with any of them, assuming you like this paper type at all.
At any rate, I think it's $20 well spent to see if you like this kind of stuff. They are very different from traditional ink jet media (if one can use "traditional" and "ink jet" in the same sentence on a large format film forum), and I think very fine papers indeed.
LJS

[ljsegil]

Sorry, but I do feel I need to correct an earlier statement. Exhibition Fiber is not at all like the Epson Ultrasmooth Fine Art Paper, which is an outstanding example of a fine art matte paper. EEFP is a glossy photo paper, meant to reproduce the look and feel of traditional silver/gelatin process. Prints on EEFP differ dramatically from the same work on Ultrasmooth Fine Art and one must first decide what sort of look one seeks prior to choosing the paper. Both produce excellent output, but very different in appearance and feel.
LJS

[Ron Marshall]

I recently tried the Harman Gloss FB AL (my first try at a non-matt paper) and was pleasantly surprised. That was on an Epson 2200; there was no gloss differential and only the slightest hint of bronzing.

I'll try the Ilford Baryta this weekend.

From the reviews of the Exhibition fiber I've read, I don't think I'll like it, as I don't like OBA's and prefer a warmer paper.

[ljsegil]

I just finished running a trial on the papers in the Atlex sampler pack (Epson Exhibition, Harman Baryta Gloss, Hahnemuhle Baryta Fine Art Paper, and Ilford Gold Fiber Silk) on four different images, two each color and B&W. All the papers are excellent and produced very worthy prints, but I was surprised by the one that I most frequently picked as superior in my "blinded" trial. 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. The Harman paper on color and Hahnemuhle on B&W probably had pride of place. The differences between the papers were very subtle, and perhaps even visible only in my own imagination, and all produced fine images; personal preferences could easily be more influenced by factors I did not consider as important such as surface texture. Surprisingly (to me at least), I never chose the Epson as the best paper; it tended toward a "garish" color rendition and loss of finest detail on my prints; perhaps other printer settings (I did not have enough paper to really experiment) might have produced better results.
Suffice to say, I have ordered a package of the Ilford 17x22" paper for my next run of prints. Again, I am surprised, as this is the first Ilford paper that has impressed me enough to purchase in more than trial quantities; I certainly hope it will continue to please. It looks as though it may well replace as my first choice the Harman Baryta Glossy that I had been using for most of my images since it became available (Harman does have the major advantage of a 17x25" size, however).
I recommend trying these papers for yourself, the investment in the trial pack is trivial compared to a commitment to purchase working quantities of any of theses quite pricey papers, and your mileage may vary; I am hardly a master printer such as ought to be guiding users of these forums.
Best,
LJS

[Greg Lockrey]

With all the problems we have had with optical brighteners in real photo paper why would we accept them for pixelography?

I like this term: pixelography. Did you invent it? I never heard it before.

I can see it now:

LIMITED EDITION PRINTS
Custom Wide Format Pixelography

[Bruce Watson]

I like this term: pixelography.

Please don't feed the trolls.