Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Moab Slickrock Profiling  (Read 2291 times)

deanwork

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2400
Moab Slickrock Profiling
« on: December 30, 2017, 04:27:32 pm »

I just tried the Moab slickrock with neutral black and white and I really like it.

I used their icc from the website on my Canon and it seemed very accurate but their profile for the Z3200 was corrupted so haven't used it there yet.

Can this media be profiled normally with xrite software or the Z equipment?

Has anyone heard anything about longevity tests for it?

John
Logged

Mark D Segal

  • Contributor
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12512
    • http://www.markdsegal.com
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2017, 05:08:43 pm »

I have done reviews of both Slickrock Metallic Silver and Metallic Pearl on this website. Profiling the Silver in Epson and Canon printers was a real headache; I have no idea about HP printers. The Pearl was easier.
Logged
Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."

DougDolde

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 188
    • Images of the American West
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2017, 05:34:46 pm »

Can't help with the profile, the one for my Epson 3880 works fine. But I have to say I truly hate the silver. The silver cast is so strong the print looks like a black and white positive.

Pearl is nice though.
Logged

deanwork

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2400
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #3 on: December 30, 2017, 05:52:30 pm »


That's exactly what I like about it. I love it. All the rc pearlescent I.papers look muddy and cheap to me. This looks like the prints on aluminum I've done in the past but a hell of a lot easier and cheaper and won't wreck your print heads.


Can't help with the profile, the one for my Epson 3880 works fine. But I have to say I truly hate the silver. The silver cast is so strong the print looks like a black and white positive.

Pearl is nice though.
Logged

Mark D Segal

  • Contributor
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12512
    • http://www.markdsegal.com
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2017, 07:00:43 pm »

As I mentioned in my reviews, the key to using these papers successfully is the choice of photos for this treatment. These are papers one uses for "effect", not for printing accuracy relative to how one perceived the scene or even file values. The Silver really works well for some kinds of images, but would be quite misapplied for others. It's totally judgmental - i.e. personal taste.
Logged
Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."

deanwork

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2400
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #5 on: December 31, 2017, 02:08:46 am »


If you make some small sharp black and white prints and mount them to dibond with no border they can be like little digital daguerreotypes. I'm not really into doing big slick color work on it though. That might end up kind of las vegasy cheesy. The smoothness, dmax, and resolution holds up good for some architectural imagery. I'll see. It's not unusually expensive. Who knows how long it will last or even  what it is made of.


As I mentioned in my reviews, the key to using these papers successfully is the choice of photos for this treatment. These are papers one uses for "effect", not for printing accuracy relative to how one perceived the scene or even file values. The Silver really works well for some kinds of images, but would be quite misapplied for others. It's totally judgmental - i.e. personal taste.
Logged

DougDolde

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 188
    • Images of the American West
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #6 on: December 31, 2017, 05:50:51 pm »

I think these papers are best displayed as acrylic face mounts.  I have tried dry mounting and even on "smooth" matboard, you get orange peel.  As far as hanging them with tape hinges goes, they are too thin and won't lie flat. 
Logged

I.T. Supplies

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 529
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #7 on: January 02, 2018, 05:29:17 pm »

Moab took a while to get the Silver to profile properly from the glare effect it gave; but there were a handful of people that were very interested in an "aluminum metallic" paper and Moab had been working on it for a while and finally perfected it.  We used to have another version of metallic silver with some sparkle look, but the manufacturer closed about 4 years ago and customers came back to us about the paper a few years afterward looking for it.

The Silver is about 300gsm (not that thin) and Pearl is about 260gsm (basically same as certain luster papers from Epson, Premier, Simply Elegant and what not).

As mentioned before, the silver paper works better on certain images unfortunately and some people like it while others don't.  It wasn't meant for any image or everyone, but is an option.  The Pearl metallic is just like the metallic luster from other brands that it is basically the same as others and named slightly different to separate themselves.  There may be slight tweaks between the brands (one with a little more pebble texture).
Logged

digitaldog

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Online Online
  • Posts: 20651
  • Andrew Rodney
    • http://www.digitaldog.net/
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #8 on: January 02, 2018, 06:48:02 pm »

Moab took a while to get the Silver to profile properly from the glare effect it gave
Love to know what Spectrophotometer was naughty and nice.
Logged
http://www.digitaldog.net/
Author "Color Management for Photographers".

Alskoj

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 408
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #9 on: January 02, 2018, 07:06:46 pm »

I once rode Slickrock on my mountain bike. Amazing experience!
Logged

Mark D Segal

  • Contributor
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12512
    • http://www.markdsegal.com
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #10 on: January 02, 2018, 08:00:42 pm »

Love to know what Spectrophotometer was naughty and nice.

I think they may have used an iSis.
Logged
Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."

deanwork

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2400
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2018, 09:33:08 am »


He sent me an icc profile. What they do is to "modify" an hp premium glossy profile and media setting. The spectrometer won't work with the reflectance characteristics of this media, at least not the Z3200 internal i1. The Canon profile worked so well I certainly wouldn't worry about making my own.

Apparently they will fade under daylight without uv glass so they recommend that. I didn't expect it to have good longevity. I would use it primarily for small things as an accent in portfolios or exhibitions of alternative media . It's certainly not something I would use for a whole exhibition or portfolio.
There is nothing I like less than facemounted plexi. I saw so much of that in Vegas I don't ever want to see it again.

  Really the Slickrock looks  pretty much the same as the coated aluminum that I tried years ago and a lot easier to print on.  I never heard any longevity data on pigment on aluminum. But it's certainly a lot easier than making tin types,  but they won't last anywhere near as long. Its best use may be in temporary advertising displays like fashion.




I think they may have used an iSis.
Logged

shadowblade

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2839
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #12 on: January 04, 2018, 12:35:35 am »

I also like it for black-and-white. Colour, too, although I have serious doubts about its longevity there and wouldn't use it with the expectation of a very long display life (by pigment inkjet standards). For black-and-white, there's much less need to worry.

As a Moab product, I would expect Slickrock to use a similar inkjet receptive layer to Entrada, which appears to be a particularly long-lasting substance (although, as a gloss paper, it would obviously have an additional smooth layer over the top). Slickrock is probably heavily loaded with OBAs, though. This is obviously a problem for colour printing, due to colour shifts, but should be much less of a problem for black-and-white printing, since it is density rather than colour that you are primarily concerned with there, and the colour shifts you are concerned about in black-and-white printing tends to be changes in the ink colour, not changes in the paper colour.

I'd probably stick to black and grey inks only, without any additional toning from the colour inks in the inkset. That way, you don't need to worry about varying colour shifts in different parts of the image, due to colour inks fading at different rates over time. There shouldn't be any reason you can't profile it the normal way, either - you aren't profiling for colour, just for density.

Obviously this says nothing about the long-term stability of the underlying plastic layer, though. Old RC papers (at least those used for gelatin photo papers) had the habit. I'm not sure if current inkjet papers are any better - RC papers tend to be designed with price rather than longevity in mind, although this is obviously not the case with products like Slickrock (which may be designed with visual impact instead of longevity in mind). I'm still waiting for someone to do away with the paper base entirely and bring out an archival-grade, perfectly-smooth plastic medium for this kind of output. High-gloss and pearl variants, and possibly a silver variant too. A bit like Fujiflex, but for inkjet. There's been Pictorico, but that's loaded with OBAs (and I'm also not certain about the longevity of the base material). It might be based on a FEP or PTFE base, rather than polyester, for better UV and chemical resistance.
Logged

John Caldwell

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 704
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #13 on: January 04, 2018, 11:59:13 am »

Is the Silver paper one of those that has a metallic sparkle embedded in the surface? My recollection is that Pearly was typical of the metallic papers, like those from Red River, Breathing Color, and such.
Logged

Mark D Segal

  • Contributor
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12512
    • http://www.markdsegal.com
Re: Moab Slickrock Profiling
« Reply #14 on: January 04, 2018, 12:03:28 pm »

Is the Silver paper one of those that has a metallic sparkle embedded in the surface? My recollection is that Pearly was typical of the metallic papers, like those from Red River, Breathing Color, and such.

Silver has a silvery metallic look and Pearl has a "creamy" look. See my reviews of both papers on this website.
Logged
Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."
Pages: [1]   Go Up