Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: KirbyKrieger on January 28, 2014, 12:36:55 pm
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Hi. I use Epson Hot Press paper for most of my work (fine art still life). I am working on a different series of pictures, and would like to find something smoother and "slicker" — more visually tactile and less atmospheric. Printing from Aperture on Epson 3880 and 9800 printers. Any suggestions? Thanks.
Kirby.
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Paper is pretty much subjective. One person's idea of Glossy is another's Luster. Matte for another could be a silk. Same for textures, rags, clothes, cottens, canvas, etc.
Suggest getting a sample pack and see what you like and how your printer handles it too - or not. Some recommendations I've tried don't sit well with my printer and leaves surface scuff marks from the rollers too. Even one's idea of a nice black dMax paper turned out poor for me too with runny ink sitting on the surface.
Various sample packs are here: http://www.atlex.com/paper-and-media/samples (http://www.atlex.com/paper-and-media/samples)
SG
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Cold Press is about as slick and tactile as matte papers get. Sounds like you're ready for the baryta and glossies.
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Thanks for the informative, helpful replies. I am doing some test runs now. Having a starting point let me plan something of a strategy for finding what I sense I need.
Cheers,
Kirby.
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Canson Rag Photographique and Hahnemühle Ultra Smooth Rag are a little smother than Epson
cold [edit: that should have been hot] pressed papers, but you will not find anything slicker in a cotton based paper. The pulp based papers can be much smoother. After that you are looking at baryta coated papers.
Brian A
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Cold Press is about as slick and tactile as matte papers get. Sounds like you're ready for the baryta and glossies.
There seems to be a contradiction between "slick" and "tactile." The OP says that he wants something that is visually tactile. I have no idea what that means. In any event, Epson Hot Press has about as smooth a surface as you can find in a matte paper. There are others that are similar, but not significantly smoother. Cold Press is definitely more textured. For a slick look, I should think that glossy papers are the only way to go.
Rob
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The OP says that he wants something that is visually tactile. I have no idea what that means.
Rob
"Sensuous" might be the best way to put it — something Dionysian in counterpoint to matte's inherently Apollonian nature — but I will try to explain, even though I know that, blowing letters through these thin black-and-white forum straws, I am more likely to sound reedy and fail than to explain what I mean.
IME, there is a three-way tug-of-war between:
- atmospheric (the illusion of the space depicted by the picture)
- print surface tactility (the perception of the picture as an object across which an illusion has been spread), and
- object tactility (the illusion of the surface of the forms depicted in the picture)
Nor are these three ropes equally sized or spaced: the atmospheric pulls nearly opposite that of object tactility (as objects become more tactilely realized, the air in the picture goes thin), while print surface tactility is usually just a clothesline deforming the main tension to the side.
My work has always thematized air — I work to get a perceptible sense of the air that houses the objects depicted, in addition to, as best as possible, fully realized objects. (Air has been, generally, cast from from the photographer's quiver by the sharp needs of advertising.)
For the past few years I have been working on something else, as well. I recently committed some of these images to print, and discovered that my standard printing — matte on Epson Hot Press Natural — resulted in too much atmosphere and print surface tactility, at the cost of what the subject matter needs, which is the thematization of the object surface itself. I'm looking for a printing process that gives more direct sensuality to the surface of forms.
From what I've read — following on the suggestion made by "bill t." — baryta paper is an excellent place to start experimenting.
I don't know "glossies". Any recommendations welcome.
(I don't understand the recurrence of "Cold Press" in this discussion (outside of robgo2's reply). Cold Press is, afaik, less smooth than Hot Press. Am I misreading this?)
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I don't know "glossies". Any recommendations welcome.
For a cotton paper, Canson Platine Rag. For a pulp based paper, ther are lotsof alternatives, including Canson Baryta Photographique.
(I don't understand the recurrence of "Cold Press" in this discussion (outside of robgo2's reply). Cold Press is, afaik, less smooth than Hot Press. Am I misreading this?)
Sorry, my typo, I was referring to hot pressed, not cold pressed papers. I have corrected my post.
Brian A
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Brian — all clear — thanks for the response and the correction.
Will order a sample of the Canson Plantine Rag tomorrow :) .