Does anyone on here use a lightweight matte inkjet paper?

[Chester McCheeserton]

and if so which one and what do you like about it?

[bob carnie]

I actually like Epson enhanced matte paper and use it a lot.

[Oren Grad]

I've used a fair amount of Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Paper Matte (also known as "The Paper Formerly Known as Epson Enhanced Matte"). Recently I've been using a lot of Inkpress Matte 60, which is even less expensive. The relatively low cost of both of them encourages more printing, which is the best way for me to find out whether my pictures are "working" - for those pictures that are going to end up as inkjet prints, I now typically have a few workprints sitting around my study at all times, which gives me a chance to live with the pictures and decide what I think about them. Sometimes if there's a picture I especially like, I'll reprint it on a premium paper like Epson Hot Press Natural.

One important thing to know is that Inkpress Matte 60 does not achieve so strong a DMax as UPPM. Usually that's considered a minus, but my printing taste tends toward lower contrast / soft gradation with open shadow tones, and I find that for many pictures I actually like the result on Matte 60 better than with the Epson paper. As always, YMMV. But the flip side is that Matte 60 works poorly with color pictures - to my taste it's strictly for monochrome work.

Both papers have gobs of brighteners, though UPPM a bit more so. These will deteriorate with time. The Epson paper is well-documented as being susceptible to base yellowing. AFAIK the jury is still out in that respect on Matte 60, though unlike UPPM, Matte 60 is specified as having a base that's acid- and lignin-free.

[Sasquatchian]

It's not lightweight, but Epson Hot Press Bright is a very very nice paper, virtually the same as Hannemühle 308, which is another preferred matte paper. In addition to the lower d-max, all of the matte papers have significantly smaller gamuts, which can affect saturated images, particularly those with dark saturated colors, but are great for black and white.

[Chester McCheeserton]

All good thoughts – Thanks guys. I've been using red river polar matte for quick contact proofs of my sheet film stuff for a while now. And I agree that Epson Enhanced matte or whatever it's called now can actually look pretty good.

I need to make some large (40-50 inch) prints, normally I use a bartya type paper like canson, but in this case I am displaying them pinned to the wall and am concerned about the thicker paper showing too much curl/not lying flat enough...

I'm searching for a unicorn paper that has decent D-max, looks good for color (my images for this are all color), isn't full of acid and brighteners, altho I'm fine not being 100% rag, and most importantly, is thinner like around 200 gsm instead of 300, so that it will hopefully lie flatter on the wall.

Probably impossible to hit all those notes on one paper I know....I actually don't mind at all the epson semi-matt, but I think longevity/acid free might be an issue. But it should last way longer than a traditional wet process Chromogenic print from a color negative right?

[Oren Grad]

But it should last way longer than a traditional wet process Chromogenic print from a color negative right?

For prints on display, the image ink of a print on Epson UPPPM is probably somewhat more stable than the image dye of a chromogenic print. But accelerated-aging tests by Wilhelm show Epson UPPPM yellowing sooner than other papers even in dark storage.

To what extent do the specific longevity numbers generated by Wilhelm's test conditions map to real-world use? I don't think anybody knows for sure. But at least comparatively, UPPPM is more vulnerable to this mode of deterioration than many other papers.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I use Canson Baryta Prestige 340gsm and Canson Baryta Infinity Photographique at 310gsm. Not lightweight but awesome paper and works awesome on my Canon ipf6400.

[Chester McCheeserton]

anyone ever try making test prints on Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Paper Matte and then switching to one of the nice matte papers like canson rag photographique or hahnemuhle ultra smooth once you've got all the picture looking the way you want?

[Oren Grad]

Yes! I've used UPPPM as a proof paper for Epson Hot Press Natural. They're not identical in behavior, but the UPPPM gets me close enough to save a lot of testing on the more expensive paper.

[jp]

For pinning to the wall some of the plasticcy lustre papers might do well with humidity or adhesive mounting.