Fine art papers for 2100

[pad]

I live in the UK, a beginner ( for several years ), and purchased papers from online-paper.co.uk

Hahnemühle ( is this pronounced Ha nee mull ?) Fine Art Pearl and Innova F-type FibaPrint Gloss.

I use RawShooter to convert Canon 5D RAW images to be opened in Photoshop CS.

I have calibrated my monitor using Spyder 2 and also have PrintFix Pro for making profiles for my Epson 2100.

I converted one colour image and one b/w image ( desaturated colour image in RawShooter ) to 16bit TIF and printed from Photoshop using downloaded profiles from the respective manufacturer site. ( no Photoshop tweaks, all levels and sharpening etc done in RawShooter )

Obervations:-

1) Both colour and b/w prints were very dark using "relative colormetric", they looked better printed using "perceptual".

2) The Innova paper has very good blacks and gives the impression of greater range/depth of contrast ( a beginners way of understanding DMAX? )

3) The Hahnemühle prints looked positively blue compared to the absolute blacks of Innova print.

Questions:-

1) Does it make a difference what colour space I assign in RawShooter at the time of conversion? I used sRGB ... would a wider gamut colour space be better ?

2) In RawShooter I can assign any of the colour spaces that I have profiles loaded for .... could I use the profile for the paper/printer directly?

3) In the Epson printer settings ... what paper should I select? I used Premium semi-gloss, so that I could set custom no colour management, 2880 dpi

4) What is the best way to deal with b/w using RawShooter and Photoshop combination? Convert desaturated RAW to TIF and assign Grey 2.2? Then what settings do I use in Photoshop .. Grey 2.2 Perceptual and set the Epson 2100 to b/w custom gamma 2.2?

P.S The Innova F-type I bought has got a very noticiable texture.. certainly not smooth.

[nihil]

I'm comparing those papers too these days, finally got Fine Art Pearl today. And I'm also comparing with my current favorite; Ilford Smooth Pearl. I use an epson 4800. So although it's not answers to your questions, please allow me to post some of my first thoughts:

The Hahnemuhle prints became really blue yes, when using the profile from their website. (then again the error could be mine I fear). However it came out nicely when letting Printer determine colors.

For my own images deep deep blacks is important. Matte is not a good option for me from what I've seen so far, even though the reflections in coated papers is troublesome with the sizes I print when framed (around A2). If anyone could point out other papers that I might like it would be very helpful.

The blacks of Hahnemühle were the poorest. Those prints looks grey compared to the others. The coating of the Hahnemühle was the least dramatic, BUT it was much more prone to give a sheen at different lightning angles, thereby rendering it even "greyer". The Innova paper seems to have slightly darker blacks than Ilford from what my eye can see. Apart from the texture, thickness etc. these two papers print very similarly.

I think I will be making a choice between Ilford and Innova. I'm starting to really like the Innova surface, but based on another thread here I don't know which batch-version of Innova I've got, and what I could expect to get in the future.

EDIT: Has anyone got an idea what differences in longevity there might be between these three papers with the new epson inks? That would of course make a big impact on my choice. I can't find any information on this, as with almost all papers. Wilhelm Imaging only tests some, for me, uninteresting papers.