Thicker paper-is it more desirable than a thinner same type, and why

[dgillilan]

Hello,
When a person is considering papers to use for printing on such printers as the Epson R3800(matte), and the Canon ipf6400 and Pro-1, both glossy and matte, would a thicker paper of the same type be preferred to thinner and why? For instance, I have two 17" rolls, one of Innova Soft Texture Art 315 gsm, and one of Crane Museo Max 250 gsm. These two papers are almost identical except for thickness. There may be some technical differences in  numbers for d max and such, I will have to research that.
What are the reasons that thicker or thinner paper would be preferred in this situation? I can only think of the fact that a thinner paper would load more easily than a thicker one, into a printer(I have had numerous times with my Epson when I had to load and reload a thick paper due to "skew" in loading.(?, seemed straight in there to me).
I use the Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Pearl for gloss and it is at 320 gsm.
So two of my papers are pretty thick, and another is thinner; would you prefer thick or thin, or would you have to consider all factors, and if all factors were equal in technical specs, why would one be preferred?

Thanks for any advice,
Debra

[John Caldwell]

In your case, the behavior of 315 and 250 weight materials may not be much different, but I can't speak to your specific printers. What I can say is that unusually thick materials, while conveying a great sense of value when held in the hand, may add to the paper handling problem list. Problems like interest forward curl, reverse curl, and probability of head strikes are all more likely when coated papers are in the 320-350 category. Uncoated fine art papers have, in my expeience, been much less prone to the same problems even at high thickness values.

One other aspect of thicker media that I have found valuable: When I mount large prints to foam core for display purposes, irregularities in the foam core and mounting adhesive "read through" the thinner papers, but not through the heavy papers.

John Caldwell

[Paul2660]

+1 to John's comments, plus thicker paper I feel will take a heavier ink load, without showing waving. Waving due to darker areas/lighter areas i.e. more ink less ink.  This seems to happen more with matte than glossy papers, but I am seeing a good bit of in with Epson Exhibition gloss paper now.  You won't see it at first but within a few hours the paper starts to show the ink loading outlines.  This goes away for the most part with a dry mount.  When you prepare prints for others however, they don't understand this issue and may notice the ink load patterns in lighter paper.  Epson Exhibition Glossy is 300 weight and still does it. 

I don't see this in Canson Platine, which is my no1 go to market paper.

Paul

[dgillilan]

Thank you Paul, I appreciate your help. I am re-thinking my papers, in trying to choose one or the other of the 250 gsm or 320 gsm papers to use.

If you use a non-coated matte paper, would you not get bleeding of the ink ? Can you suggest one of them that you use so that I can see if I have some tests, I keep my test papers and not at home right now, but can look for some that I have done on non-coated papers.
Thanks, Debra

[dgillilan]

Thank you Paul, I had not thought about the darker/lighter ink loading areas for a thinner paper.

Thanks again, Debra

[shadowblade]

When other considerations are equal (e.g. texture, gamut, longevity), I would almost always choose the thicker (not necessarily heavier) paper. A heavier print just looks and feels better as a physical object. I wish more papers were manufactured in card stock weight - 500gsm and above. Epson and Canon printers can handle a paper thickness of 1.5mm - why not use it?

[shadowblade]

Thank you Paul, I appreciate your help. I am re-thinking my papers, in trying to choose one or the other of the 250 gsm or 320 gsm papers to use.

If you use a non-coated matte paper, would you not get bleeding of the ink ? Can you suggest one of them that you use so that I can see if I have some tests, I keep my test papers and not at home right now, but can look for some that I have done on non-coated papers.
Thanks, Debra

If you use a heavily-sized watercolour paper, you can limit bleeding of the ink. Bleeding also doesn't matter as much at large print sizes, since the bleed distance is much smaller relative to the size of the print.

You can accelerate drying times by adding a platen heater to the printer. On an Epson, it's a simple matter of taping a heating cable to the platen using fibreglass tape. Also, you can get better results by using custom, high-pigment-load inks - uncoated papers hold less ink than coated papers, but, by using inks with more pigment, you can get the same final pigment load onto the paper.

Apparently, there's also an alcohol-based ink that prints well on uncoated paper. Don't know much about it, though. http://www.jetbest.com/product_magic%20ink.html

[Some Guy]

Can't say if I've ever had a printer head strike on a thin paper.  However, on thicker ones like that BC Silverada which seems to exhibit some strong side curl no matter how I try and flatten it in a D-roller, the head will strike it and made all sorts of noises.  Even push it sideways and off registration by a few degrees when it happens.  Then I end up with ink drops over subsequent prints for a while too.

If you decide on thicker, I'd cut it and store it flat for a week or more if coming off a roll.  I know Premier Art has some 500gm one, but I'd cut and store it for a while in an old inkpaper box for that size prior to using it.  Flat-stored paper just seems so much easier to work no matter the weight over a roll paper.

Most likely sharpness is in the coating.  Another would be the ink and its viscosity towards leeching out while drying.  I was surprised reading one guy's blog about how matte papers seem to take 24 hours to dry and change the L* values while doing so until they stabilized at 24 hours.   The photo black papers seemed to dry in 8 hours and stabilized for him.

I do find if I use a hair dryer that the ink density, fresh off the printer, seems to vary over a long-term naturally drying one.  Maybe leeching ink or something else going on while slow drying.  Sun drying may do some other bleaching of the OBA's in the papers too and causing a L* shift too.

SG