Stock Paper Profiles

[David Eichler]

I have an Epson 3800 and an Epson 280 printer. Aside from the stock profiles for Epson papers, I have found the stock profiles for Harmon, Ilford and Red River's standard glossy papers have worked well for me. Stock profiles for other  some other Red River papers, Inkpress and Moab papers I have tried have not worked well. Any suggestions for other paper manufacturers whose stock profiles work well? I am particularly interested in doing inkjet notecards and postcards. However, Inkpress and Moab cards/profiles did not work for me and some of the Red River card papers/profiles also did not work well. Wish Epson would do these. Really do not want to cut and crease these myself. Any suggestions for alternatives?

While I am at it, any suggestions for a small modestly priced printer that delivers reasonably high quality?  This would be for marketing materials and doesn't have to be exhibition quality. I am not happy with the results with the R280. I can't seem to get neutral greys out of it and there are unacceptable color shifts. Getting perfectly nice results with the 3800. Not expecting the quality of the 3800 for this, or for colors to be as accurate.  But I do need neutral greys and somewhat better color precision. Is it just the Claria inks, or are there better Claria printers? Would prefer to stick with Epson if possible.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Museo makes very fine note cards in different sizes; they are pre-scored for easy folding and the paper stock is top quality.  Their profiles are excellent (disclaimer: I did the target printing for the Epson 2880 profiles).  Most inkjet paper distributors carry the full line of Museo products.  Don't expect to get rich marketing note cards.

Alan

[GamutGirl]

Hi,

We've used Red River branded papers in a large production environment after recommendations from big name photographers. We used their matte, lustre, and glossy papers and were pretty content with them for a while until we had difficulty controlling humidity in our work environment. Unfortuantely, the coated papers began to curl causing headstrikes. We switched to Brilliant brand premium papers and the curling issues went away no matter the humidity. Brilliant also provides ICC profiles on their website which were pretty accurate. We've since switched to using only Epson brand premium papers since we had a few issues with Brilliant's coated double sided matte papers prematurely drying out our feed rollers. Anyways, try the Brilliant brand papers.  They have a sample pack you can buy to test on. They also make Hahnemule-like fine art paper that's supposedly made in the same factory as Hahnemule.

Good luck!

[David Eichler]

Thanks Alan. Using post cards and note cards for marketing purposes, for small runs, and/or when I want higher quality than standard half-tone repro.

Also, another need is for larger runs of reasonable quality two sided flyers.  By the way, I am currently trying the new Epson 2 sided brochure and flyer paper for this with the Epson 3800 and running into paper feed problems with the 3800.  Are there better printers for this purpose that will still give high quality (doesn't need to be quite as high as the 3800), that will work well with stock profiles?