The warm tone is very pretty, but I have no sense of what it would do with colors.
The warm tone is very pretty, but I have no sense of what it would do with colors.
Ed Richards
http://www.epr-art.com
There is currently an embarrassment of riches among inkjet papers. While I use an Epson 3800 with the K3 inks, other printers, eg HP and Canon may give slightly different results. If you cannot use the latest inks, there are some small compromises. The first decision is glossy or matte, then paper surface, some or no texture, then tonality of the paper, cool or warm. I too was temporarily in love with Hahnemuhle fine art pearl, and made a lot of prints with it, but it has been surpassed by the newer generation of baryta papers, at least for gloss-semigloss work.
For my glossy work, the deepest blacks, color or black and white, seem to come from the Harman FB Glossy. For many, including the folios published by Lenswork, it has become the de facto standard high quality glossy paper, though some folks like the Hahnemuhle Baryta. While no inkjet paper can look the same as a wet darkroom print, the Harman does come pretty close and for many is an excellent transition paper to pigment printing for wet darkroom converts.
For matte papers, I am currently using Moab Entrada Rag, a nice surface and less expensive than the Hahnemuhle Photo Rag, another excellent paper. I do love the tone of the Hahnemuhle Bamboo for my color images that benefit from a slightly warm tone.
Most importantly, having said all this, look at a paper, touch it, look at prints like your own, or get a few sample sheets and try it. Writing about paper reminds me of the Steve Martin quote about music..."Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." And remember, most papers look similar under glass or plexi, and... after you spend hours deciding on a paper, the average gallery viewer spends only a few seconds looking at all your hard work.
Good luck and have fun.
Eric
If you like super OBA blue white paper.. like other Epson photo papers, you'll like the EEF, nothing wrong with it, performs well. If you prefer a more LAB neutral paper base, Hanne Photo Rag Baryta wins hands down over here. Not to be confused with Hanne Fine Art Baryta, which has a different surface and base. Since you liked Fine Art Pearl, try the Photo Rag Baryta, similar surface, better performance, nice hand, less gloss differential and bronzing, have never seen a flake. Only downside- occassional buggers in the paper, easy to avoid, last roll in here looks better than when introduced.
I'm assuming you are still on Epsons? If you are now on HP, the field opens up a bit because of the gloss optimizer.
So far the talk has been all photo surfaces, if you like matte, other good papers have come along as well.
Tyler
http://www.custom-digital.com/
I have a roll of the Harmon Glossy FB (Baryta), and the Ilford Gold Fiber Silk (Baryta). Both give equally excellent results. The Harmon is too expensive. I stocked up on the Ilford.
I prefer the regular Harman Glossy for prints of cooler things, like shots with snow, white granite, waterfalls and rivers, etc. The warmtone is nice for scenes with more organic material (humans included!) If you print with an option of a warmer print you can do that on the regular to save a little $$$, since the warmtone is more expensive.
Hahnemuhle Bamboo is a fantastic paper. Great tone, great texture.
Bamboo is a fine art matte paper, I have seen a lot of it in the last several weeks because of a sale here, full Ultrachrome color and Piezotone Warm, Selenium, and split tone.Originally Posted by keeds
It is indeed a very nice paper, performs as well as all of the Hahnemuhle line, very much like Photo Rag but a bit warmer paper base.
However, it is a matte paper, and I think Chris is looking for a photo surface paper.
OT: But for matte, I would encourage people to look into these papers. The Sugar Cane is nice too, and the Prince's Rain Forest Project exhibition of Daniel Beltra's work at the Mercy Corps Action Center in NYC last month, we printed entirely on Sugar Cane, very appropriate, and nearly indistinguishable from his previous prints on William Turner.
Tyler
http://www.custom-digital.com/
im curious as to if you can print on the Harman FB Glossy with the Photo Black ink on a 4880+colorburst RIP ?
Or do i need to swap inks to Matt?
Deniz,
Maybe Ed Richards will chime in here. I'm pretty new to all this, but based on a past post of Ed's, I've just been printing with a 3800 on Harmon FB Glossy using the AWB settings of the Epson driver, no special profiles or anything, no ink swapping that I know of. The results seem good to me but, again, I'm pretty inexperienced and maybe not as discriminating as others!
The Harmon FB is meant to be printed with the photo black ink, as are all gloss papers that I know of. I am sure the colorburst rip will do a fine job if you can find a colorburst profile for the Harmon.
I print on it with the epson driver and the 9900 printer with and the abw mode or let photoshop manage colors and use the Hahnemhule Baryta profile. The Harmon baryta profile that I took off their site was garbage. Anway, this combo has worked for me for color and b&w. ymmv
www.timeandlight.com
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