Fine Art Paper comparisons

[michaelezra]

I am trying to find the best paper for printing color landscape work on archival media using Epson K3 inks. Landscape images as viewed on NEC2690WXi monitor (93% of aRGB) have brilliant color, yet when printed using MK inks everything is muted, though, as expected, of course.

Currently I am using soft-proofing in photoshop to evaluate icc profiles of various papers for Epson K3 inks. I wonder if there is any software tool that would allow to quantify the differences.

I searched the net for any meaningful comparison of printing gamuts of various papers (without OBA as a preference) and did not really find anything. So, if you happen to have any insight, I would very much appreciate any information you may share.

Thank you,

Michael Ezra
www.michaelezra.com

[BarryS]

There are software utilities that allow you to compare ICC profiles, but I recommend testing papers over trying to discern minor differences in profiles. If you're printing on matte art papers without OBA's, you're working with the smallest possible gamut. Try some luster or gloss PK papers with OBA's and you'll be achieving a much higher gamut in your prints. There are still many archival choices and the worst thing OBA's can do is degrade over time gradually reverting the paper to its natural warmer tone. Conventional photographic papers contain OBA's and are considered archival. You can find many fine papers with small amounts of OBA's.

[Greg Miller]

What paper are you printing on? Matte papers have a smaller gamut than luster or glossy papers and the dmax can really suffer. But some papers do better than others. I find velvet papers to be very unsatisfactory for maintaining vibrant colors and deep rich balcks, but I find other papers such as Moab Entrada and Hahnemuhle German Etching paper to do pretty well. I sure wish I could get deeper blacks and have better shadow detail though - but that's the nature of matte paper compared to luster or glossy papers.

[Steven Barall]

What Greg said.

[Lenny Eiger]

I sure wish I could get deeper blacks and have better shadow detail though - but that's the nature of matte paper compared to luster or glossy papers.

Try Hahnemuhle Photo Rag. It's the top paper and there's reasons for that.... Extremely great color reproduction, plenty of dmax. Velvety rich color. When I show potential clients the difference between a luster paper and same print on Hahnemuhle, they always choose the latter. Nothing wrong with a matte surface... I prefer it by a mile.

Lenny

[Greg Miller]

Try Hahnemuhle Photo Rag. It's the top paper and there's reasons for that.... Extremely great color reproduction, plenty of dmax. Velvety rich color. When I show potential clients the difference between a luster paper and same print on Hahnemuhle, they always choose the latter. Nothing wrong with a matte surface... I prefer it by a mile.

Lenny

I could be wrong but I thought there wasn't much difference between Hahnemuhle Photo Rag and Hahnemuhle German Etching except the German Etching paper has more texture. I use the German Etching paper but do not see the same dmax as with luster papers.

[Kirk Gittings]

Try Hahnemuhle Photo Rag. It's the top paper and there's reasons for that.... Extremely great color reproduction, plenty of dmax. Velvety rich color. When I show potential clients the difference between a luster paper and same print on Hahnemuhle, they always choose the latter. Nothing wrong with a matte surface... I prefer it by a mile.

Lenny

I agree with you about the good mat papers, beautiful surfaces like a fine lithograph. Unfortunately then you put it under glass and that beautiful surface is invisible. Unframed I prefer mat, but under glass I prefer the additional Dmax of the Baryta papers.

[Walter Calahan]

I love both the Hahnemuhle Photo Rag and the Baryta papers.

I use the Photo Rag for my printed portfolio since it gets handled a lot. I use the Baryta for display.

[Eric Brody]

The issue of Lenswork that arrived today contains a brief discussion of the newer baryta papers and finds, as I have, that the Harman Glossy baryta paper was without question the best of the current batch. It had the best surface and the best blacks. Brooks felt it had better blacks than his selenium toned darkroom prints.

I had been using Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl, but when I saw and tried the Harman, I was hooked. As a traditional black and white printer, previously in the darkroom and now with an Epson 3800, I never liked the matte papers, though for pastel-like color prints they can be nice.

Eric

[Lenny Eiger]

I could be wrong but I thought there wasn't much difference between Hahnemuhle Photo Rag and Hahnemuhle German Etching except the German Etching paper has more texture. I use the German Etching paper but do not see the same dmax as with luster papers.

Greg, Didn't mean to compare them - I think most of Hahnemuhle's offerings are excellent.

As to Kurt's comment about the glass - I wish I never had to put glass in front of my prints - its painful! The good glass is real expensive, too, and that's the only kind that works even a little. I think your comment about deeper black is aesthetic-based. I appreciate that that is your artistic preference and I respect it, but personally, I usually choose less black in the image, closer to a platinum print... more how I see the world.

Lenny

[ljsegil]

I concur that the new Harman Glossy FbAl is outstanding and has converted me from being a matte printer (usually Epson Velvet Fine Art or Ultra Smooth Fine Art, some Hahnemuhle, Museum Etching was my favorite) over to the glossy world. The prints just look wonderful. I find the Ilford Galerie Gold Fiber Silk nearly as nice, and use it for 17x22", but the Harman is uniquely available in 17x25" (the only fine art paper in that size that I am aware of) and I find that size useful for many of my pieces, particularly from the 5x7" camera or a 6x17cm panorama (or even XPan, if the negative can take that kind of enlargement). I was started down the road to glossy perdition by Museo Silver Rag, which I also still think is very fine but has been supplanted for me by the more recent offerings. Contrary to some reviewers, I did not think the Hahnemuhle Baryta or the Epson Exhibition papers reproduced quite as much fine detail or subtle gray levels, and that the color reproduction seemed more vivid with the Harman and Ilford papers. Of course, these findings are highly dependent on the profiles used for each paper. But all are fine, and certainly worth trying and comparing yourself, as YMMV.
Best of luck,
Larry

[Jim Becia]

I concur that the new Harman Glossy FbAl is outstanding and has converted me from being a matte printer (usually Epson Velvet Fine Art or Ultra Smooth Fine Art, some Hahnemuhle, Museum Etching was my favorite) over to the glossy world. The prints just look wonderful. I find the Ilford Galerie Gold Fiber Silk nearly as nice, and use it for 17x22", but the Harman is uniquely available in 17x25" (the only fine art paper in that size that I am aware of) and I find that size useful for many of my pieces, particularly from the 5x7" camera or a 6x17cm panorama (or even XPan, if the negative can take that kind of enlargement). I was started down the road to glossy perdition by Museo Silver Rag, which I also still think is very fine but has been supplanted for me by the more recent offerings. Contrary to some reviewers, I did not think the Hahnemuhle Baryta or the Epson Exhibition papers reproduced quite as much fine detail or subtle gray levels, and that the color reproduction seemed more vivid with the Harman and Ilford papers. Of course, these findings are highly dependent on the profiles used for each paper. But all are fine, and certainly worth trying and comparing yourself, as YMMV.
Best of luck,
Larry


I agree with Larry in that these new papers are outstanding. My personal preference is slightly different that his. I like the Hahnmulhe Baryta first, the Ilford Galerie Silk second, and the Harmon Fiber Gloss third. That being said, all three make wonderful prints. My only complaint with the Ilford is that I wish they would make a 36 inch roll. Most of my large prints top out at 30X36 and having to use a 44 inch roll gets wasteful. And Ilford is the least expensive by a decent amount (at least the last time I checked). As you can see, everyone has their own opinion as to what looks the best, but I doubt you could wrong with any of the three, at least in my book. Jim

[john borrelli]

I have standardized on the most economical system rather than the "best" and my comments might be best suited to other beginners out there. I print landscapes on glossy paper and I shoot Fuji Velvia film. I don't have any color correction devices. Even so, I find my prints much better than the local pro oriented lab can produce.

Presently I am using 8x10 (sometimes 11X14) inch Epson premium glossy paper, I have an Epson R1800 and an epson 4990 and photoshop, so pretty entry level stuff. Some months ago I downloaded Epson's profiles for my printer and for the Epson premium glossy paper.

I noticed an improvement in my prints after doing this as prior to this I had been getting my most consistent results in using the printer to determine colors mode.

Unfortunately, once I switched to this paper profile, I was no longer able to preview the print before printing as the preview would consistently appear washed out on my Mac screen, even though the actual print appeared extremely close to the image I had been working with in Photoshop, so I have stopped using the print preview function altogether. Incidentily,when using photoshop, I adjust my monitor to about half the brightness level and this matches my prints best.

Just a few other comments:

Over time my printing has become better. I think it has helped me to use primarily one film, one paper, and to try to eliminate as many mistakes as I can from scanning to printing.

One thing I have noticed is that in the past if an image was a little underexposed, I would try to lighten the entire image and the print would be disappointing, my style tends to be a little toward the darker side when making the exposure as it suited my style so why try to use levels or channels to lighten the entire image before printing?

Instead, I now will lighten/saturate some of the highlights and midtones using adjustment and selection tools and leave some of those dark Velvia shadows to keep the mood of the image, which at some level attracted me to the scene in the first place. I have also discovered that the Shadow/Highlight Tool also helps with this style choice and I use this tool consistently as my last step before sharpening.

Considering another factor than the paper, if you are interested in displaying your prints in a frame on the wall behind glass the way you illuminate the print can be more important than the differences in papers.

[michaelezra]

I have made the first color print yesterday on Epson 7800 (K3) using Silver Rag paper. This is the first time I was able to create a digital print that resembled rather an oil painting than any conventional photo. Miraculous! Thank you all for your input!

[ljsegil]

The Silver Rag does have a very special look to it which I have found very appealing in the past. The look is unique in my experience. I moved on to the Baryta glossy papers because I felt that they captured much of the Silver Rag feel, without the texture of the Silver Rag, which I felt was sometimes a distraction from the photo. I think they are all fine choices and you will probably find positive aspects in all of them. We're fortunate right now to have a wide variety of excellent papers, from matte through glossy, available for fine art photo inkjet printing.
LJS

[Noeyedear]

I am trying to find the best paper for printing color landscape work on archival media using Epson K3 inks. Landscape images as viewed on NEC2690WXi monitor (93% of aRGB) have brilliant color, yet when printed using MK inks everything is muted, though, as expected, of course.

Currently I am using soft-proofing in photoshop to evaluate icc profiles of various papers for Epson K3 inks. I wonder if there is any software tool that would allow to quantify the differences.

I searched the net for any meaningful comparison of printing gamuts of various papers (without OBA as a preference) and did not really find anything. So, if you happen to have any insight, I would very much appreciate any information you may share.

Thank you,

Michael Ezra
www.michaelezra.com

Michael,
Not wishing to hijack your post, but here I go anyway. I love the pictures on your site are you multi-exposing to get that DR in your images? And I second the Harman papers.

Kevin.

[michaelezra]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks! I use Mamiya ZD and used in the past Fuji S3 which both have 12-stop DR. Almost never had to multi-expose, but in case of panoramic multi-row stitching there is a custom feature in AutoPano that is very useful - layer-based color correction.
This allows equalization of exposure within bright sky vs land and blending them together while maintaining exposure differences that were used during capture,
so that sky stays darker, as it was captured to retain highlight details and land brighter, to reveal the shadows. Smartblend blender in Autopano handles merging of these layers flawlessly.

[Noeyedear]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks! I use Mamiya ZD and used in the past Fuji S3 which both have 12-stop DR. Almost never had to multi-expose, but in case of panoramic multi-row stitching there is a custom feature in AutoPano that is very useful - layer-based color correction.
This allows equalization of exposure within bright sky vs land and blending them together while maintaining exposure differences that were used during capture,
so that sky stays darker, as it was captured to retain highlight details and land brighter, to reveal the shadows. Smartblend blender in Autopano handles merging of these layers flawlessly.

It works very well.
The Nudes are great too.

Thanks,

Kevin.

[Noeyedear]

Is that a ZD with a digital back?

Kevin.

[michaelezra]

no I have ZD camera, though ZD back should provide identical image quality