Innova Exhibition Photo Baryta 310gsm

[SharonVL]

Is this paper having any of the same issues of availability as other papers like Ilford gfs that have been discontinued?  I like the paper and the price but I'm concerned about availability.

Sharon

[Alan Goldhammer]

Is this paper having any of the same issues of availability as other papers like Ilford gfs that have been discontinued?  I like the paper and the price but I'm concerned about availability.

Sharon

Most of the Baryta papers are sourced from Europe and I think coated by Schoeller.  I had a back order of Moab Juniper Rag from last September that arrived two days ago.  Personally, I think baryta is a marketing ploy as I really did not see much difference between the Moab paper and Museo Silver Rag which has been my principal gloss paper for printing and is now being discontinued.  Examination of prints from the two papers are very hard to tell apart.  That being said, Canon have a new firmware update for the Pro-1000 that has a dedicated baryta setting.  I'm going to re-profile using this setting and see if there is a major difference.  I'm also taking another long look at Canson Plantine Fibre Rag which is also similar to the Museo paper.  One other concern with the baryta papers as Mark McCormick-Goodheart has pointed out is the use of TiO2 as a whitening agent.  This can decompose causing issues in terms of print longevity.  I've always avoided OBA containing papers.

I have some prints hanging in an downtown office that have been up for 12 years now.  The still look very good and it's hard for me to visually assess any color changes.  It's a pretty demanding environment with lights on for 14 hours a day.  Most of the prints were on Museo Silver Rag.

[mearussi]

Most of the Baryta papers are sourced from Europe and I think coated by Schoeller.  I had a back order of Moab Juniper Rag from last September that arrived two days ago.  Personally, I think baryta is a marketing ploy as I really did not see much difference between the Moab paper and Museo Silver Rag which has been my principal gloss paper for printing and is now being discontinued.  Examination of prints from the two papers are very hard to tell apart.  That being said, Canon have a new firmware update for the Pro-1000 that has a dedicated baryta setting.  I'm going to re-profile using this setting and see if there is a major difference.  I'm also taking another long look at Canson Plantine Fibre Rag which is also similar to the Museo paper.  One other concern with the baryta papers as Mark McCormick-Goodheart has pointed out is the use of TiO2 as a whitening agent.  This can decompose causing issues in terms of print longevity.  I've always avoided OBA containing papers.

I have some prints hanging in an downtown office that have been up for 12 years now.  The still look very good and it's hard for me to visually assess any color changes.  It's a pretty demanding environment with lights on for 14 hours a day.  Most of the prints were on Museo Silver Rag.

When I first started printing many years ago I did a massive paper comparison buying all the sample packs from every paper company I could find (and individual papers if they weren't in sample packs) using my Epson 4800. One of those papers was Silver Rag. At least with K3 inks Silver Rag's dmax was bested by several other papers, especially Innova's IFA-45.  I don't know if it has any TiO2 or not but if you've never used it you might check it out.

[Alan Goldhammer]

When I first started printing many years ago I did a massive paper comparison buying all the sample packs from every paper company I could find (and individual papers if they weren't in sample packs) using my Epson 4800. One of those papers was Silver Rag. At least with K3 inks Silver Rag's dmax was bested by several other papers, especially Innova's IFA-45.  I don't know if it has any TiO2 or not but if you've never used it you might check it out.

Thanks, I'll see about getting a box.  On my old 3880, Silver Rag had the best dMax of all the papers I tested.  If the Innova paper is a 'warm' paper odds are that there is no TiO2.

[SharonVL]

Thanks for your comments!

I liked how the Innova Exhibition Photo Baryta has a smoother surface, much like the silver rag, than most platines I've tried. And it printed the reds the way I wanted. Red river palo duro soft gloss and hahnemuhle photo rag baryta did not. I liked silver rag too for black and whites, it was too warm for me for color.

So what I want is a less warm paper with no obas or ti02 issues and is very smooth. Hahnemuhle gloss baryta has the smoothness but also obas.


Sharon

[MHMG]

This is a reply to a number of comments above.

Moab Juniper Rag is OBA free, but the spectral plot suggests it has TiO2. I don't think TiO2 is cause for concern when there are no OBAs present. It's the combination of the OBAs and TiO2 where the trouble begins. The b* value for Juniper Rag is about 3. So, a warm paper but not by too much.

Innova Exhibition Cotton Gloss (not to be confused with Exhibition Photo Baryta) is OBA free, and the spectral plot suggests it does not have TiO2, but it's b* value is 5.4, so quite warm (like Hahnemuhle Bamboo). Probably a very nice choice for B&W imagery, maybe not so good for color unless the scene is naturally warm light to begin with and not any important robins egg blue, light sky blues, etc. in the scene.

Museo Rag was TiO2 and OBA free with slightly whiter white point (b*=2.4) than Moab Juniper.

Sihl Satin Baryta is OBA free and TiO2 free. It's a true barium sulfite coating, IMO.  It has a very good whitepoint color (b* = 1.7 according to Sihl. I read approx. 2.0 in samples I've tested). Mostly special order in the U.S. so a bit harder to buy, but worth considering.

The light induced low intensity staining (yellowing) issue appears to be a problem of having both degrading OBAs and TiO2 present in the media. I will be putting a high OBA content/no TiO2 formulation paper into test soon, so it will be interesting to see if LILIS is still present even though OBA fading will be, but I suspect if it is, it will be much less than in media which has both TiO2 and OBAs present.

When no OBas are present, a spectrophotometer (like the popular Xrite i1Pro2) can be used to indicate presence of TiO2. TiO2 whiteners impart a strong downturn in reflectance starting at around 400 nm and increasing strongly at 390-380nm. When OBAS are present, they too cause such a downturn, so the OBA and TiO2 absorption curves get conflated, and it hard to say whether TiO2 is present when OBAs are also present, except with RC photo media where it's a given that RC papers all rely on TiO2/PE coatings. For full confirmation, I have to turn to XRF to prove the presence of TiO2 on non RC media. I have to rent time on XRF equipment, so I can't do this research on a routine basis because my very limited funding doesn't permit. That said, the next batch going into testing at Aardenburg is going to be emphasizing the so-called Baryta papers, thus I will characterize all the chosen media for the next round of testing both with spectral readings and with XRF. I think there is more to be learned here.

The media manufacturers are understandably not forthcoming about chemical formulations, but we need to know the chemistry in order to correlate it with light fastness results, and to in turn place more pressure on the industry to give us more stable papers in this "baryta" and "traditional fiber" class of inkjet media.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

 

[SharonVL]

Thank you, Mark!

[mearussi]

Mark, I've used the IFA-45 for dozens of different prints and the color is always beautiful. I don't have your testing equipment to do a scientific check, but whatever white undercoating is Innova uses the yellow cast of the paper doesn't seem to come through.

[MHMG]

Mark, I've used the IFA-45 for dozens of different prints and the color is always beautiful. I don't have your testing equipment to do a scientific check, but whatever white undercoating is Innova uses the yellow cast of the paper doesn't seem to come through.

I can only report to folks the actual color of the paper, expressed in well known L* a* b* colorimetric terms. When a paper is far more bluish or far more yellowish than dead neutral in CIELAB rated terms, it's more challenging to print on for many printmakers. It's not that one can't print successfully on said highly cool white papers or highly warm white papers, and with proper image edits achieve a beautifully colored print. It's simply that it gets harder to do. Which is why many printmakers like papers such as Canson Platine so much. Platine is extremely close to dead neutral in color, so it renders the source image file neither warmer nor cooler in highlight and midtone color balance. When printing on papers that do render the image noticeably warmer or cooler, careful image editing for printing conditions can of course be performed, and desired color balance can be achieved. It just takes more image editing skills and thus more work in post processing. That's really what I was trying to convey in my earlier remarks. I should have taken more time to elaborate.

Hold IFA-45 next to a sheet of Canson Platine in good light. You will immediately see the warmth of this paper compared to the more neutral appearing Canson Platine.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[mearussi]

I can only report to folks the actual color of the paper, expressed in well known L* a* b* colorimetric terms. When a paper is far more bluish or far more yellowish than dead neutral in CIELAB rated terms, it's more challenging to print on for many printmakers. It's not that one can't print successfully on said highly cool white papers or highly warm white papers, and with proper image edits achieve a beautifully colored print. It's simply that it gets harder to do. Which is why many printmakers like papers such as Canson Platine so much. Platine is extremely close to dead neutral in color, so it renders the source image file neither warmer nor cooler in highlight and midtone color balance. When printing on papers that do render the image noticeably warmer or cooler, careful image editing for printing conditions can of course be performed, and desired color balance can be achieved. It just takes more image editing skills and thus more work in post processing. That's really what I was trying to convey in my earlier remarks. I should have taken more time to elaborate.

Hold IFA-45 next to a sheet of Canson Platine in good light. You will immediately see the warmth of this paper compared to the more neutral appearing Canson Platine.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

Yes, I've seen that with blank paper. But once printed I can no longer see the difference. Maybe if I had the proper equipment to check it I could. 

[SharonVL]

Yes, I've seen that with blank paper. But once printed I can no longer see the difference. Maybe if I had the proper equipment to check it I could.

It probably has to do with your color perception. I do well on most colors, but have a very difficult time with my perception of reds. My husband has much better color perception than I do.

Sharon

[MHMG]

Yes, I've seen that with blank paper. But once printed I can no longer see the difference. Maybe if I had the proper equipment to check it I could.

Not questioning your personal experience, but if media white color did not influence the color reproduction of images well into the highlights and midtone values in an image, then there would be no real need for manufacturers to offer media with significantly different whitepoint color values. The inks don't fully hide the underlying color of the paper until well into the dark midtowns and shadows of an image. Hence, paper color matters more on images with high key values than ones dominated with low key values. Yet it really does matter, enough so that Xrite even offers ICC profiling compensation methods to offset the influence of OBAs on the profile's rendering output.  For OBA-free media, typical b* values for paper white go from 1 to 7, with the majority of media landing between 1 and 3. So, Innova Exhibition Gloss falls at 5 b* units into a noticeably warm category.

Most printmakers don't sweat a difference of 1 or 2 b* units between two different papers, but when comparing papers that differ by 3 or more b* units, enduser preferences start to become clear. Warmer papers can set the image editing starting point very well with certain image content. Cooler papers become a good starting point with other image content. Additionally, within a typical range of about -3 to +3 b* units, a good ICC profile helps to adapt the image content to the paper white color, such that many people may not really notice much of a difference in image color balance between the same image file printed without further adjustments on different papers,  but it's still there to discerning viewers, thus the printmaker can still elect to make further subtle image adjustments, for example, to help cool a warmer rendered color balance or warm a cooler rendered color balance.

All this said, Innova Exhibition Cotton Gloss is a lovely paper, just a bit on the warm side, but it is indeed a very high quality inkjet paper. If you like how your images look on IFA-45, you are good to go 

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[ssgphoto]

Thanks Mark thats helpful.

I agree with mearussi about I-45, the Innova Exhibition Cotton Gloss. We used to use the Museo Silver Rag regularly but had so many quality control issues that we switched to the Innova and while It is a warm paper, it prints with stunning depth. The blacks looked great right way, so we never looked back. It is warm but color prints well too in spite of the lack of a pure white. Unfortunately the paper has its own issues, I must say that the core impression on the Innova goes through almost a 1/3 of the roll so factor that into your costs if you don't want a soft impression in the middle of your prints. This can be true of several rag papers but I have never seen this so far into a roll as with this media. At one point we had about a dozen 44 or 60" rolls lying around with at least 1/3 remaining on each core - at least 15 feet or more, thinking it was worth saving but it's too difficult to work around. Some of the impression can be overcome in mounting but I'm not in the habit of suggesting that a client need to accept a print thats not perfect out of the machine.

[SharonVL]

Thanks Mark thats helpful.

I agree with mearussi about I-45, the Innova Exhibition Cotton Gloss. We used to use the Museo Silver Rag regularly but had so many quality control issues that we switched to the Innova and while It is a warm paper, it prints with stunning depth. The blacks looked great right way, so we never looked back. It is warm but color prints well too in spite of the lack of a pure white. Unfortunately the paper has its own issues, I must say that the core impression on the Innova goes through almost a 1/3 of the roll so factor that into your costs if you don't want a soft impression in the middle of your prints. This can be true of several rag papers but I have never seen this so far into a roll as with this media. At one point we had about a dozen 44 or 60" rolls lying around with at least 1/3 remaining on each core - at least 15 feet or more, thinking it was worth saving but it's too difficult to work around. Some of the impression can be overcome in mounting but I'm not in the habit of suggesting that a client need to accept a print thats not perfect out of the machine.

I'll try I-45. I've emailed Innova twice asking about future availability of the Exhibition Photo Baryta but they haven't responded. I'm concerned that it will go the way of Ilford GFS.  I really like the surface of that paper. Does anyone know how the surface of the Photo Baryta compares with the I-45?

Sharon

[SharonVL]

Okay, I heard from Innova after my last post.

"What you are hearing in the market is true. These grades of Baryta type papers have been made obsolete.
This is due to the decommissioning of a machine.

The new paper has the same appealing semi-matte surface with optimised handling properties and all the existing benefits retained. We have further improved handling with the abrasion improved backside coating, where dust is reduced.
The sharp imaging quality and high colour gamut remains the same, with the D-max levels being improved.
You can continue to use the existing ICC profiles with the new paper.

I have attached comparison test results between the Old IFA-69 & New IFA-69 for your perusal."

[elliot_n]

Okay, I heard from Innova after my last post.

"What you are hearing in the market is true. These grades of Baryta type papers have been made obsolete.
This is due to the decommissioning of a machine.

The new paper has the same appealing semi-matte surface with optimised handling properties and all the existing benefits retained. We have further improved handling with the abrasion improved backside coating, where dust is reduced.
The sharp imaging quality and high colour gamut remains the same, with the D-max levels being improved.
You can continue to use the existing ICC profiles with the new paper.

I have attached comparison test results between the Old IFA-69 & New IFA-69 for your perusal."

Thanks for the update.

I recently tested a bunch of baryta papers. Hahnemuhle Photo Gloss Baryta was my favourite, with Innova Exhibition Photo Baryta a close second.

If you like those two papers, I don't think you'll like Innova Exhibition Cotton Gloss - it's very creamy.

(Is Hahnemuhle Photo Gloss Baryta on the way out too?)

[SharonVL]

I hope not. I really like that paper but the Innova has no obas which gloss baryta does have.   I use a lot of Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta also and like it but it is warmer and has more surface texture than the I-69.

Sharon

[SharonVL]

I have had a print up of gloss baryta when it was made by Harman and it shows no yellowing. It has been up several years. So I don't know how much the obas affect this paper. Epson Exhibition Fiber, a paper I loved, yellowed pretty fast. Although I loved it, I don't print on it because of this.

Sharon

[NAwlins_Contrarian]

I have had a print up of gloss baryta when it was made by Harman and it shows no yellowing. It has been up several years. So I don't know how much the obas affect this paper.

This is not a scientific test, but you may nevertheless find the observation illuminating (pun intended?): shining a UV flashlight on unprinted white areas of a variety of inkjet photo papers, Hahnemühle Photo Gloss Baryta glows brightly (about the same as most of the typical glossy and luster RC photo papers), Hahnemühle Photo Silk Baryta glows slightly, and Red River Palo Duro Softgloss Rag does not glow at all. The glow under UV light is probably a very rough indicator of OBA content.

That said, for some photos I really like the Photo Gloss Baryta. Accepting that it may yellow significantly if exposed to much light is just one of those choices we make.

[SharonVL]

Thanks!