Bad printing paper discussion

[John Camp]

Mike Johnston's blog (The Online Photographer) has an interesting post by Ctein, a well-known printer, about problems with defects in some well-known brands of printing paper. Pretty interesting discussion, too.

[DarkPenguin]

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/t...crap-paper.html

[BobFisher]

Is paper the next link in the chain to be improved?  Printers are much better now than when the first commercially accessible inkjets came on the market.  Inks are vastly improved from the days of the Epson 1280 (and earlier) and the 2200.  Maybe paper's next.

[Ernst Dinkla]

Is paper the next link in the chain to be improved?  Printers are much better now than when the first commercially accessible inkjets came on the market.  Inks are vastly improved from the days of the Epson 1280 (and earlier) and the 2200.  Maybe paper's next.

Quite possible. One of the things to consider is the wide variety of papers we already have. I do wonder whether the batches produced may be too small to allow good quality control. The same foudrinier has to switch between small batches too often. Some manufacturers are not big and running old equipment. I have printed a lot of offset papers and art papers (Arches 88, Velin, Magnani, Van Gelder, etc) in silkscreen printing. The consistency in quality was in my experience higher with offset papers from big mills. It was not unusual to see a thin line in art papers where a wheel somewhere in the process didn't roll nicely. That shows as well with (semi) transparent silkscreen inks as it does in inkjet printing. Paper lint and dust building up at the underside of the screen like it does on the inkjet heads. For the last it may be a wise decision to coat the back of art papers, in both cases, sheets and rolls, the print side collects fibers, dust from the backside of the paper before it is printed. Coating could fix the fibers better. It may loose some appeal of rag papers but could help a lot in printing. Some manufacturers have percentagewise more dual sided papers in their catalogue than others have, Moab is an example. Wonder whether that reflects in less issues in practice. More (good) companies appear on the market but I expect that consolidation will happen too. Let us hope that it goes along with quality consistency.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/

[Alan Goldhammer]

For the last it may be a wise decision to coat the back of art papers, in both cases, sheets and rolls, the print side collects fibers, dust from the backside of the paper before it is printed. Coating could fix the fibers better. It may loose some appeal of rag papers but could help a lot in printing. Some manufacturers have percentagewise more dual sided papers in their catalogue than others have, Moab is an example. Wonder whether that reflects in less issues in practice. More (good) companies appear on the market but I expect that consolidation will happen too. Let us hope that it goes along with quality consistency.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/

Museo has an interleaf paper between inkjet paper and this dramatically reduces the dust and lint compared to Hahnemuhle papers.  Still, one does need to dust each sheet prior to printing (front and back).

Alan

[ednazarko]

Can you hear me shouting "amen!" to his complaint?  Some of my most-printed images are very large panoramas (for every inch in selected print height, one foot in print length, so if I print a 12 inch high version of an image, it's 144 inches long), and my preferred papers are smooth fine art papers.  My biggest cost problem is paper quality.  Almost every other print, I find a paper flaw that is glaringly visible somewhere along the image, since many of the images have skies with long tonal and color transitions - big visibly smooth areas like Ctein's NASA image.  When I'm lucky, the flaw shows up early and I can kill the print, saving paper, and start again.  Not so lucky when it shows up in the last couple of feet.  There were two papers that I stopped using because quality was so bad I couldn't get a single print without a flaw - entire rolls of waste.  I tried fiber papers recently, but only for three prints, because out of the three I didn't get one clean run.  I'm glad I prefer smooth fine art papers for my panos, because they seem to either be better quality or flaws hide better, but I still have to assume a "yield" and plan for reprint time for any pano print I make.

What's disappointing is that I also print on aluminum and on unusual papers where I coat them myself with InkAid.  I get a better yield of contaminant-free results than some paper manufacturers, and that's with two dogs in my house and studio...

[bill t.]

I thought flaws were just a problem with canvas, was surprised to discover the glossy art papers have dirty little secrets as well.  Oddly enough I have been getting the least flaws from the budget canvas I use for hotel and institutional jobs, and the most flaws from the big name canvases I use for collectors and high end buyers.  Go figure.

For long prints with smooth skies I usually roll out the length of of canvas I'm going to use on a meticulously cleaned piece of Gatorfoam supported at opposite ends by the printer and a table.  If the print is shorter than about 3 feet I just roll it out over the printer cover.  If the piece has a flaw I slice it through flaw then roll it up for smaller prints or testing.  Has saved me some grief.  If you do this remember that the back of the canvas will pick up any dust from whatever it contacts and transfer it to the printing surface when rolled back up, so cleanliness is next to profitability.

BTW don't think I ever saw a flaw in the many, many Epson Premium Luster rolls I used to use.  Those were the days.