Whatever they want to call it , "legacy" fiber is a direct clone of Canson Rag Photographique , complete with pigment brightners, sharpness, gamut, etc. that Epson did not create and that no other company had. I don't need you, someone who is not a professional printmaker , to educate me about it because I've actually used it in it's Canson form everday for the last decade and also in its Epson form since that was relased because it was shipped to me faster. The profile is the same for both and both have screwed up coatings now, whoever is coating them now, ( it was in Germany ) and they are not going to tell you who that is they are contracting out to or how many factories are doing the coating.
It's possible that they are having temporary quality control problems. It is also possible that it is being coated in more than one place. But it is more than a little odd that the same exact issue is happening at the same exact time with both Canson and Epson versions of the media. ( the same paper with different names on them).
The Platine is also a Canson product that they cloned. Everybody who is a professional printmaker knows this other than people who believe these Epson salesmen and their hype. Platine is a very distinctive product, also using pigment brighteners and unlike any other paper out there. Epson never had any world class papers with their name on them until this merger or buyout or whatever they did. And no I don't go around changing printers and papers every month because I have, and a lot of other people all over the world have editions on them that need to be consistent.
The only reason I posted this is to let people know this over priced Canson clone "Legacy" Fiber has real problems now and it may or may not ever be resolved. Who knows. Just be careful out there. Its gets very expensive and time consuming.
Before acquiring Canson, FILA also bought St. Cuthberts Mills in the UK, the manufacturer of the Somerset papers. Arches is since 2011 part of a Scandinavian group, Canson the last decade was owned by the Hamelin group (after Arjomari and Arjo Wiggins till 2007) and Canson already had to change brand names of several Arches origin inkjet papers in relation to that before it was acquired by FILA. Then there has been a rumor of a row between Canson - Felix Schoeller, FS aiming at marketing its own inkjet art papers with the same inkjet coatings. Photokina 2014.
My best guess is that Epson buys your Epson Legacy Matte from Canson and the last went to other production sources, in worst case both paper base manufacturing + inkjet coating. When did you notice the changes in the Rag Photographique first?
On the Platine you shouldn't worry. That type of paper from several distributors has in my opinion one source; Felix Schoeller and the samples I measured are over time more and more improving and become more and more identical. Up to the Red River labeled one.
While I have the Hahnemühle certification as a shop I do not add the HM paper certificates with the jobs. Epson started that kind of paper assurances, Hahnemühle followed, Canson did too. Here in The Netherlands some studios created their own ring of certified studios with bogus certification, Cruse scanner required if I recall it correctly. All filled with a lot of air.
On the other hand the Hahnemühle papers so far had the most consistent paper quality of the paper manufacturers I deal with and that for about 15 years. Some glitches in quality control happened with their products too but percent wise less than with the other ones and consistency became better in time. They also were the first to enter this market with cotton art papers coated for inkjet. I recall we first bought the HM papers from Lyson that also added bogus stories about an extra treatment their HM versions got, Hahnemühle denied that. Hahnemühle uses mainly Sihl for coating facilities but some fibre, baryta, papers have the FS character. Sihl sells several inkjet papers too. Ownership of Sihl changed in 2016 as well.
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htmMarch 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots