Pages: [1] 2 3 4   Go Down

Author Topic: What's your favorite Matte Paper?  (Read 17830 times)

marcmccalmont

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1780
What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« on: May 19, 2013, 02:40:00 am »

What's your favorite Matte paper?
...and why is it your favorite?
Thanks
Marc
Logged
Marc McCalmont

Schewe

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6229
    • http:www.schewephoto.com
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #1 on: May 19, 2013, 03:19:52 am »

The one I haven't tried yet, but will make my images look so much better!

Really, do honestly expect a reasonable answer?

Unless you divulge the type of work you shoot the type of printer you are using and the type of image you are selling (or giving away) the question is unanswerable...

"favorite Matte paper" for what?

You really need to concentrate your testing to readable available paper whose profiles are really good. Then test the hell out of them. If you get good results, post them here..
Logged

JRSmit

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 922
    • Jan R. Smit Fine Art Printing Specialist
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #2 on: May 19, 2013, 03:35:31 am »

The one I haven't tried yet, but will make my images look so much better!

Really, do honestly expect a reasonable answer?

Unless you divulge the type of work you shoot the type of printer you are using and the type of image you are selling (or giving away) the question is unanswerable...

"favorite Matte paper" for what?

You really need to concentrate your testing to readable available paper whose profiles are really good. Then test the hell out of them. If you get good results, post them here..
+1
I am in fact in the process of testing fine art papers, from Innova in this case, and all i can say is that it requires testing to understand the papers and get the most out of them. in that process i also learn for what types of images go with smooth, high white, medium textured etc. You will be surprised what for instance adding a small (say 0.5 sec) drying time per printhead pass will make on these papers. typical photopapers, RC papers, can also be matte, again you need to figure out what works best for you.
There is a lot of info already available on the internet, you need to work through this and factor the key aspects into your printing set up.
Looking forward to Jeff's print book, unfortunately a bit delayed because of some stormy cloud ;-)
Logged
Fine art photography: janrsmit.com
Fine Art Printing Specialist: www.fineartprintingspecialist.nl


Jan R. Smit

bill t.

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3011
    • http://www.unit16.net
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #3 on: May 19, 2013, 03:36:27 am »

My favorite matte paper for landscapes is BC Elegance Velvet, for two reasons...

1. While its overall gamut is no better than any other matte paper, it produces a solid looking black and substantial looking images.

2. It can take canvas coating extremely well, which allows for glassless presentations.

I would probably prefer Epson Cold Press, except it exhibits a sandpapery texture when coated.

But basically, what Schewe said.  I tested a bunch, evaluated the overall mojo of each, and in my case finally picked one mainly on practical considerations as dictated by production requirements.
Logged

JRSmit

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 922
    • Jan R. Smit Fine Art Printing Specialist
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #4 on: May 19, 2013, 03:47:01 am »

Bill,

What canvas coating do you use? And how do you apply it? I use hahnemuhle protective spray, 3 coats, for glassless use. Works fine, but perhaps your coating approach works better?
Logged
Fine art photography: janrsmit.com
Fine Art Printing Specialist: www.fineartprintingspecialist.nl


Jan R. Smit

marcmccalmont

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1780
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #5 on: May 19, 2013, 03:48:47 am »

The one I haven't tried yet, but will make my images look so much better!
Posted this open ended question knowing some would respond this way but there will be others who will post their favorites and I'll be able to test half a dozen good papers instead of hundreds


Really, do honestly expect a reasonable answer?
YES

Unless you divulge the type of work you shoot the type of printer you are using and the type of image you are selling (or giving away) the question is unanswerable...
Not true every one has a favorite for what they shoot

"favorite Matte paper" for what?
for printing photographs on an inkjet printer :)

You really need to concentrate your testing to readable available paper whose profiles are really good. Then test the hell out of them. If you get good results, post them here..
Made my own profiles and am quite pleased with both the Canson Platine Fibre and Baryta now it is time to move onto the Mattes

Yes I have gotten very good input here on papers! I just finished profiling Canson Platine Fibre and Baryta from recommendations here. I would never have tried them on my own.
Why an open ended question? because the answers are unique with a wider spread of suggestions. But in general I go for Glossy on images with vibrant colors, Satin on most images and Matte for B&W or near monochromes.  
Cheers
Marc
« Last Edit: May 19, 2013, 03:50:55 am by marcmccalmont »
Logged
Marc McCalmont

JRSmit

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 922
    • Jan R. Smit Fine Art Printing Specialist
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #6 on: May 19, 2013, 04:07:51 am »

Prhaps you already know, but never the less: Check the spectrumviz.jar tool of Ernst Dinkla. it helps a bunch to narrow down the choice as there are only a few manufacturers, but many labels. Another good check is aaron dygart website for ink hanling of quite a few papers.
Both have contributed extensively to this forum.
 
Bythe way, what printer do you use?
Logged
Fine art photography: janrsmit.com
Fine Art Printing Specialist: www.fineartprintingspecialist.nl


Jan R. Smit

marcmccalmont

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1780
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #7 on: May 19, 2013, 04:21:12 am »

Prhaps you already know, but never the less: Check the spectrumviz.jar tool of Ernst Dinkla. it helps a bunch to narrow down the choice as there are only a few manufacturers, but many labels. Another good check is aaron dygart website for ink hanling of quite a few papers.
Both have contributed extensively to this forum.
 
Bythe way, what printer do you use?

Thanks not familiar with that tool I'll look it up
Printers I've limited myself to Canon pigmented inks, one because the iPF5000 was my first good printer then I bought a used iPF9100 to print canvas and larger prints now that I'm in an apartment I have the Pixima PRO-1 all use Canons pigmented 12 ink system
Marc
Logged
Marc McCalmont

Schewe

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6229
    • http:www.schewephoto.com
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #8 on: May 19, 2013, 04:34:05 am »

Why an open ended question?

No...you didn't even bother to state the work you do nor the printer you are using. Either nugget would be useful to answering you question...but your OP was so open ended as to be a blatant disregard for the community (my opinion) and seemed to be asking people to do your own work for you...

You want to find out what aper to use, a least do some initial testing on your own to indicate you are at least willing to make an effort on your own behalf. Otherwise it really sounds like you just want somebody to do the heavy lifting and benefit from the time and expenses that others have invested. Seriously, your original post hit me like, screw you, do your own testing...I'm not gonna do your work for you...
Logged

marcmccalmont

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1780
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #9 on: May 19, 2013, 04:39:23 am »

No...you didn't even bother to state the work you do nor the printer you are using. Either nugget would be useful to answering you question...but your OP was so open ended as to be a blatant disregard for the community (my opinion) and seemed to be asking people to do your own work for you...

You want to find out what aper to use, a least do some initial testing on your own to indicate you are at least willing to make an effort on your own behalf. Otherwise it really sounds like you just want somebody to do the heavy lifting and benefit from the time and expenses that others have invested. Seriously, your original post hit me like, screw you, do your own testing...I'm not gonna do your work for you...
Schewe I'll take this off line and PM you
Marc :)
Logged
Marc McCalmont

Schewe

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6229
    • http:www.schewephoto.com
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #10 on: May 19, 2013, 07:27:09 am »

Schewe I'll take this off line and PM you

Yeah, well not change to my posts...tell us what you do and why you want the answers...otherwise it totally comes across as wanting to take advantage of the effort of others...(which any question here on LuLa is, it's really a question of how blatant the process is and how easy it may or may not be to answer).
Logged

marcmccalmont

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1780
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #11 on: May 19, 2013, 07:59:03 am »

Sure, see my re-post, but living overseas it is difficult and costly to tests hundreds of papers due to shipping weight, so as I have in the past (with success!) I'm asking for some help. When I asked for peoples "favorite paper" (months ago) there were many with the same favorite. I chose the top 6 for my own evaluation, even do my own profiles to be more consistent, in this way I can focus more efficiently and I was exposed to Canson papers that I was unaware of. In this post JRsmit shared spectrumviz.jar tool of Ernst Dinkla, just spent several hours looking at that info. I find answers to open ended questions sometimes surprising  usually enlightening. Sorry if you were offended don't really understand why, I mean if I asked what camera should I buy? without background info I would understand the frustration but if I posted what's your favorite camera? I don't see the offense? Let's say I had a ice cream stand or was an ice cream aficionado and posted Whats your favorite Ice Cream? Whats the offense? Not interested in a public argument with you if you want to help post an answer if you don't, don't. If as a professional it is too open ended for you to respond to, I understand. As a professional myself if I was asked "Whats your favorite Airplane?" I might ask for fun ,airliner or military? or I might just answer "My favorite of all time was the A-4 Skyhawk, my favorite light plane is the Falco and my favorite airliner is the 777" but I wouldn't take offense at the question. 
Cheers
Marc
Logged
Marc McCalmont

hugowolf

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1001
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #12 on: May 19, 2013, 05:02:38 pm »

For a smooth matte/matt/mat paper I prefer Canson Rag Photographique 310 over the more popular Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308. The Canson paper stays flat, the Hahnemühle paper has a tendency to curl after printing. For landscapes, the Hahnemühle can muddy dark greens. The Canson paper also has no OBAs.

I like BFK Rives for a very lightly textured paper. In the fine art world it is known as Rives BFK and is a traditional fine art printing paper.

For a medium textured paper, I really like Hahnemühle German Etching. It retains a lot of detail for a textured paper. I’m currently looking for an alternative in 100% cotton, which I find sells better, and without OBAs. If it was only for my own use, I would not be looking elsewhere.

For a heavily textured paper, I like Arches Aquarelle. But once you get into heavily textured papers, you get even more into personal preferences and suitability for individual images. There are lots of good watercolor papers about.

I also use Breathing Color Elegance Velvet and Pura Velvet.

One thing worth mentioning with regards textured papers is the loss of texture where the ink goes down. On some papers you can lose almost all texture in ink saturated areas, and only retain texture in the whites and lightest colors. Other papers will retain texture uneven under heavy inking, and some will lose texture even with little ink. It is worth testing textured fine art papers under different ink loads and with a variety of test images. A heavily textured light skinned face, for example, generally doesn’t work well unless the image is very large – probably larger than A3+.

Brian A
« Last Edit: May 20, 2013, 12:31:15 am by hugowolf »
Logged

bill t.

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3011
    • http://www.unit16.net
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #13 on: May 19, 2013, 07:17:31 pm »

What canvas coating do you use? And how do you apply it? I use hahnemuhle protective spray, 3 coats, for glassless use. Works fine, but perhaps your coating approach works better?

Three thin coats of BC Glamour II Gloss (only) with an HVLP sprayer.  Produces a satin finish with a relatively lush tonality enhancement.  But be careful, too much coating will take down the highlights.  Totally different beast than the "protective sprays" which do not much affect image appearance or print robustness.  A GII coated print can survive a pretty good fingernail assault or furniture swiping event, but protective sprays can't.

Also tried a number of micro-porous media like the Canson Rag Photographique and Epson Enhanced Matte.  All such surfaces absorb coating like a sponge for several coats in a way that completely destroys the beauty of the image.  On Epson Cold Press, GII sort of raises the paper grain in a way that creates a lot of what looks like hazing.
Logged

John Caldwell

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 704
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #14 on: May 19, 2013, 10:14:29 pm »

Unless you divulge the type of work you shoot the type of printer you are using and the type of image you are selling (or giving away) the question is unanswerable...

"favorite Matte paper" for what?


The above answer is given all the time by the intelligentsia and it makes no sense to me. Why in the world can I not tell the man that my favorite paper for portraiture is usually BFK Rives; and my favorite for high contrast deep-blacks is Epson Cold Press Natural, so long as surface texture is acceptable? What is it about his question, and my answer, that is somehow inauthentic without his divulging his use? Even then, I'd need to see his images, and be inside his head as to what he's looking for in his images, to advise him further. Note he did not ask, "What paper matte paper will I like best?" For someone just starting out in a certain arena of printing, it's completely understandable that he or she may wish to have some advice about a possible jumping off point with regard to media selection. Bottom line, it comes across, to me, as a means of putting a novice in his place and it's not the community-correct approach, as I see it. Others will disagree, as is their right.

John Caldwell
« Last Edit: May 19, 2013, 10:27:45 pm by John Caldwell »
Logged

jrsforums

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1288
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #15 on: May 19, 2013, 11:27:41 pm »

The above answer is given all the time by the intelligentsia and it makes no sense to me. Why in the world can I not tell the man that my favorite paper for portraiture is usually BFK Rives; and my favorite for high contrast deep-blacks is Epson Cold Press Natural, so long as surface texture is acceptable? What is it about his question, and my answer, that is somehow inauthentic without his divulging his use? Even then, I'd need to see his images, and be inside his head as to what he's looking for in his images, to advise him further. Note he did not ask, "What paper matte paper will I like best?" For someone just starting out in a certain arena of printing, it's completely understandable that he or she may wish to have some advice about a possible jumping off point with regard to media selection. Bottom line, it comes across, to me, as a means of putting a novice in his place and it's not the community-correct approach, as I see it. Others will disagree, as is their right.

John Caldwell

++++1
Logged
John

Schewe

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6229
    • http:www.schewephoto.com
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #16 on: May 19, 2013, 11:32:46 pm »

The above answer is given all the time by the intelligentsia and it makes no sense to me.

The repost of his question as it relates to landscape images with pigment inks while not a lot more informative was a step in the right direction. Even his 3rd post gave more useful info in a mildly snarky manner :~)
Logged

texshooter

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 575
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #17 on: May 20, 2013, 02:03:57 am »

Why in the world can I not tell the man that my favorite paper for portraiture is usually BFK Rives...

Probably because this question has been asked and answered countless times, and Schewe would like to keep the discussions both technically advanced (so as not to bore LULA's pantheon of expert members) as well as scientifically accurate (so somebody can win the debate). Doesn't the moderator have permission to move questions to the beginner's thread? That might keep Schewe happy. Oh, by the way Schewe, I'm looking forward to your new book The Digital Print, but if you have devoted entire chapters to the subjects of why shooting Raw or with a tripod is important--or God forbid, a lengthly discussion on the rule of thirds--so help me God.... ;)

As far as favorite mattes go, I like Epson Cold Press because I find the colors and blacks to be a tad more deep from my Epson printer and because you can print on bith sides; also because I don't like warm papers. canson arches aquarelle and hahnemuhle william turner have a nice rough texture which I look for in matte papers. I just learned that Brooke Shaden, one of my fav photogs, prints on Breathing Color Velvet fine art, so I'm going to test that out next. My advice is to buy a sample pack from Epson, Hahnemuhle, Canson, and Ilford and you will find your favorite. Not that other brands are inferior, just that these  makers provide all the choices you need. IMO.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2013, 03:53:09 am by texshooter »
Logged

leuallen

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 453
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #18 on: May 20, 2013, 03:43:52 am »

Quote
I just learned that Brooke Shaden, one of my fav photogs

John, did you catch her three day workshop on Creative Live last week. You may find that interesting.

Larry
Logged

Schewe

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6229
    • http:www.schewephoto.com
Re: What's your favorite Matte Paper?
« Reply #19 on: May 20, 2013, 05:06:20 am »

Oh, by the way Schewe, I'm looking forward to your new book The Digital Print, but if you have devoted entire chapters to the subjects of why shooting Raw or with a tripod is important--or God forbid, a lengthly discussion on the rule of thirds--so help me God.... ;)

Then you'll be happy to learn some of the best images in The Digital Print book are from film scans...and while I allude to The Digital Neg book, this one is all about making really great prints regardless of where the image came from. And so far, I've not mentioned "rule of thirds" though now that you mention it...

:~)
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3 4   Go Up