Hahnemühle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth with Landscapes

[bill t.]

BC Pura Smooth and Pura Velvet are nice, OBA-free papers.  Very much in the same ballpark as Epson Hot and Cold Press, but of course without OBA's the white point is a little lower although the on-the-wall look is very white and neutral.  The Velvet has some stipple.

My interest is that it coats well with canvas varnishes, a single very thin coat of gloss brings it up to satin-like finish with excellent mechanical protection, while punching up the apparent contrast and d-max to near baryta levels.  Doesn't pick up any ink whatsoever during rolling, 8300 owners take note.

[MHMG]

The AaI&A test results for HN photo rag Ultrasmooth that Alan referred to are in the process of being updated to a new report format which is why I'm running so far behind on the latest test results (that and the fact that I lost my volunteer who was helping me stay on top of all these measurements). Anyway, I hope to have the report conversions completed this weekend, so look for "new and improved" reports early next week for batch K. Batch K has these HN Ultrasmooth samples in it.  

I just posted the latest results which can be found here:
http://aardenburg-imaging.com/cgi-bin/mrk/_4534c2hvd19kb2NfbGlzdC80

Batch K1 has reached 100 Megalux hours of accumulated light exposure. Filter the database on [batch} [contains] "K1" to locate the updated test reports.

Given that Ultrachrome yellow is the most fade prone pigment in the Epson Ultrachrome colorant set, the complete set of ABW mode samples which Alan kindly prepared and submitted to AaI&A for testing show absolutely textbook light fade behavior on the HN Ultrasmooth paper. Those samples with shades made at the extreme limits of the ABW color wheel where yellow is added are faring worse than tints which do not contain yellow. ABW "Cool" and "neutral" preset shades have not yet reached Conservation display limits.  ABW "warm" preset also not at the CDR limits, but ABW "Sepia" preset has reached both CDR limits. Again, this is  textbook blended colorant fading behavior, so the "Warm" tint is doing better than the "Sepia" tint and the Sepia is doing better than the other samples which contain even more yellow colorant. Shades comprised only of magenta and/or cyan colorants added along with the photo gray channels have not reached any CDR fading limits yet.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[Chiotas]

Dear friends,
I must confess that I did not understand a single word of the last 4 o 5 replies
I'm really a printing noob, but I promise to you that I'll study hard
(Btw, is there a tutorial/manual/anything about fine art printing and paper vocabulary like OBA,CDR,..? Any help appreciated as google did't help me a lot..thank you!)

Anyway, I finally received the long waited sample pack and here is my final choice: Ultra Smooth!
I'm not able to describe it with technical terms, but in my humble opinion is simply perfect for those reasons:

- Almost no texture...so smooooooth!
- No reflection at all
- Wonderful details!

I think that is the perfect choice for printing my long exposures

[MBMPhotography]

Francesco glad to hear that you found your paper