Smooth Matte Paper/Limited Editions

[jjlphoto]

I've an artist friend I have been doing work for, I shoot his paintings and make gallery sell sheets and promo cards on my Epson 3800 running Epson HeavyWeight Matte Paper. Being the prints are short lived, for sales tools only, I have no issues with using an ecomony grade stock, plus it is cheap. He really likes the look and feel of that paper, and wants me to make limited editions on a similar stock that is more suitable for that purpose. I have considered Epson UltraSmooth Fine Art Paper as an archival type of paper. Anyone have experience with it? Even though Epson HeavyWeight Matte Paper has Optical Brighteners, I wish to stay away from papers with OB's for this type of application for obvious reasons.

BTW, Epson UltraSmooth Fine Art Paper in 17x22 is roughly $7.00 per sheet.

[DavidP]

I have been doing something similar using the Epson Velvet. it has a fine texture suitable to art work and it a little brighter then the ultra smooth, It still holds amazing detail. has the same long archival spec's. I think there are papers from other manufacturers that are similar to the ultra smooth as well. You may be able to get some sample packs. I have tried a number of papers before settling on the Epson Velvet.

[Geoff Wittig]

I've an artist friend I have been doing work for, I shoot his paintings and make gallery sell sheets and promo cards on my Epson 3800 running Epson HeavyWeight Matte Paper. Being the prints are short lived, for sales tools only, I have no issues with using an ecomony grade stock, plus it is cheap. He really likes the look and feel of that paper, and wants me to make limited editions on a similar stock that is more suitable for that purpose. I have considered Epson UltraSmooth Fine Art Paper as an archival type of paper. Anyone have experience with it? Even though Epson HeavyWeight Matte Paper has Optical Brighteners, I wish to stay away from papers with OB's for this type of application for obvious reasons.

BTW, Epson UltraSmooth Fine Art Paper in 17x22 is roughly $7.00 per sheet.
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Epson's Ultrasmooth fine art paper is very nice, about as good as you'll find for a heavy cotton rag fine art sheet. No optical brighteners, a very smooth surface, and decent color gamut for rag paper. Somerset velvet for Epson has a more obvious surface texture, but one that works very well for snow scenes, adding some perceived detail. I have not personally used the newer Epson velvet fine art, but others report that its black is a little blacker than that obtainable with other rag papers with Epson's matte black ink. Finally, consider the classic Hahnemuhle photo rag paper. It does use some optical brightening agents, but has a very nice subtle eggshell texture and excellent color gamut with Epson inks.

[mdijb]

Even though the epson paper is popular, I think there are better options available.  Hanemule and Innova both make better papers with greater detail and shadow separations, in my opinion.  I like the rough surfaced textures that reproduce paintings very well--I have settled on Inova Cold Press-  It is alpha cellulose, which makes it a lot cheaper but still is an archival product.

I think it worth your time sampling other products.

MDIJB

[Geoff Wittig]

Even though the epson paper is popular, I think there are better options available.  Hanemule and Innova both make better papers with greater detail and shadow separations, in my opinion.  I like the rough surfaced textures that reproduce paintings very well--I have settled on Inova Cold Press-  It is alpha cellulose, which makes it a lot cheaper but still is an archival product.

I think it worth your time sampling other products.

MDIJB
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Potato, Po-tah-to. I've tried basically all of Hahnemuhle's papers, and like them a lot for specific images. Photo rag satin in particular is just beautiful when printed with the HP Z3100. Shadow detail is highly dependent upon the quality of your profiles. Bill Atkinson wrote some fabulous profiles for Epson ultrasmooth fine art for the 7600/9600 printers, and using this combination I have had wonderful results. By comparison, Innova papers leave me unimpressed, due to a combination of inconsistent quality control and supplied profiles that are at best fair. I haven't liked them enough to go to the trouble of having custom profiles made.
As always, YMMV.

[jjlphoto]

.....I like the rough surfaced textures that reproduce paintings very well--I have settled on Inova Cold Press.....
.......I think it worth your time sampling other products.
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For my work, I use Innova FibaPrint F-Gloss; Hahnemuhle's PhotoRag, Torchon, and Albrecht Durer; so I have a pretty good pipeline of interesting papers. But as I mentioned in my original post, this client wants a very smooth matte finish paper, similar to plain jane Epson Matte Paper Heavyweight. Digital Art Supplies is going to send me a swatch of Epson's Velvet Fine Art and UltraSmooth Fine Art. Arches has some nice hot press papers, but they are quite pricey.