Until now, I've been printing exclusively on matte paper and canvas with the Epson UltraChrome inks and the Matte Black ink option. What would be the downside (if any) of printing on Epson Exhibition Fiber paper with Matte Black instead of the Photo Black ink?
Thanks for any information on this!
Bad idea because photo black ink is designed to work with gloss/semigloss paper coating to yield the darkest possible black. As I understand it, photo black inks generally have tiny particles of pigment suspended in some kind of resin carrier, and those tiny particles sit on top of the coating to produce that great d-max. But it will wick into the fibers of cotton rag papers and lose density. Matte black ink uses much bigger particles that adhere to the fibrous surface of cotton rag paper rather than soaking in, so they yield a better d-max on such rag papers than photo black can manage.
Use matte black ink on coated paper and you won't get a good black; instead you'll get kind of a dark grey. This can look fine on cotton rag paper as long as you don't have a fiber/gloss print next to it to demonstrate how inferior the black d-max is. Additionally, matte black ink really doesn't adhere well to coated paper. Wipe your thumb across it, and you get a chalky black smudge on your skin.
