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Author Topic: Best paper for black and white?  (Read 58684 times)

Mark D Segal

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #20 on: January 13, 2015, 01:58:35 pm »

All told I probably spent about 45 minutes on it - multi-tasking helps. I don't sit idle while the cleaning or the patch prints are in process. It's just a nuisance and consumes some ink and maintenance tank. When these things happen it's best to keep the blood pressure under control and take it in stride - there's no viable alternative. And then I think back to the old days of Xerox machines in the office that always jammed - badly - and time needed to clear them out and reset them. The urban myth was that the machine actually knew the personalities of the people who used it, and if you were one of these up-tight angry types predisposed to swearing at the machine, it would be sure to jam just when you needed the copies immediately. :-)
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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deanwork

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #21 on: January 13, 2015, 03:35:47 pm »

If there is no resolution difference between Platine and Hahnemuhle Photorag Baryta on the Epson printers then I certainly wouldn't use it.
Like people have said, the gamut and dmax differences are marginal.

But on my IPF 8300 there is a significant sharpness difference. So much so that my client has made reprint an entire body of work, which he is paying for.

After working with this Platine for one big roll, I don't care for it either, and I am reminded why I never went with it when it first came out. There is too much bronzing with my Canon inks  ( not the HP inks though ) and they absolutely have to be sprayed. The worst part is that after half a roll is used up you start getting major head strikes. Not good. So then I had to cut the media into 22x26 inch sheets, flatten them in the dry mount press and run as sheet media. A pain. If I"m going to do 30x40s I would have to cut them up and flatten them under weights for like a week to use it.  Like the other Canson Baryta and the Ilford Gold Satin, it shows marks in the white border areas really easily, another reason to have to spray them. That is ok if they are going behind glass in a frame, but entirely another situation of you making a portfolio that is to be handled.

So, in conclusion I'm not going to stock this Platine but will only use it for those who come to me insisting on it, which is one person so far. The resolution difference is not worth the other drawbacks. The Hahnemuhle papers are so much easier to deal with.

John
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #22 on: January 13, 2015, 03:41:48 pm »

If there is no resolution difference between Platine and Hahnemuhle Photorag Baryta on the Epson printers then I certainly wouldn't use it.


John

John, For clarity, the test I did with my Epson 4900 compares Platine with Ilford Gold Fibre Silk which for all intents and purposes is identical to Canson Baryta Photographique. I did not test for Epson inks against any Hahn papers. And yes, "pain" is the operative variable!
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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deanwork

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #23 on: January 13, 2015, 03:49:40 pm »

The best thing about it is it's white point. It is as white as the Hahnemuhle FA Pearl which has oba, and the Platine doesn't, maybe they are using pigment brighteners like the matt media . I remember it being warmer initially but I could be wrong.

But I"m not using these Canson fiber gloss papers anymore for the most part. It just isn't worth the trouble.

john


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Ernst Dinkla

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #24 on: February 10, 2015, 04:25:53 am »

A Digital Black & White forum has been created by Chris Sanderson within LuLa's Raw & Post Processing, Printing group.


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2014 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots
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Stefan Ohlsson

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #25 on: February 10, 2015, 06:42:38 am »

The major difference in my case is that I think the Platine with its cotton rag backing created a huge clogging issue which never before arose with this printer in the middle of a printing session.

I've been using Canson Platine both in my 4900, 7900 and 9900 and never had any clogging problems caused by that paper. Had my share of clogs with these printers, but after we started to use a humidifier we see much less of that.

Best regards

Stefan
http://www.korta.nu/profiler
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aaronchan

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #26 on: February 10, 2015, 07:16:00 am »

I have used the Platine Fibre Rag on my previous 8300 and John was right, Bronzing, blah blah blah whatever it shouldn't comes out, it did.
BUT I did used it with my Piezo K7 Warmtone Gloss for one of my client who used to print with Ilford WT paper in the darkroom.
And the final result, this is what he actually said: thank god I was the one who printed them in the darkroom, otherwise, I wouldn't even know which one is which, specially under the glass.
This is why I love this paper so much. But saidly, I'm not using K7 ink in this moment........

aaron

deanwork

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #27 on: February 11, 2015, 03:04:09 pm »

I had some bad things initially to say about Platine on the Canon 8300. The main thing that made me mad was when I was in the middle of a big job and the second half of the 44" roll was curling so much that I was getting some bad head strikes and I didn't have time to flatten out 30x40 print sheets before printing on them. It does have more bronzing than the other papers of this class that I am using and that could be an issue for those who refuse to spray prints. With Epson inks this paper has less bronzing, and the HP looks fine with its gloss enhancer. It seems to me that Epson puts more gloss enhancer in their inks than Canon. But Canon inks seem more durable to me on all the media.

Now after being forced to use Platine for a client I began printing black and white on it as well as color and I've really grown to like it a lot, especially for smaller things where the texture of the pearl surface Hahnemuhle might be a bit too obvious. I do believe with these Lucia inks they need to be sprayed with a uv coat, especially when laying down a lot of black ink. Both because of their bronzing and the surface vulnerability. But I think Aaron is right, you put these prints behind glass and no one can tell them from silver prints, especially if you using Piezogrpahy on them, actually they might be more subtle in high values than silver prints.

I was playing around with comparisons of various inks with the same file on different papers yesterday and there are a lot of good options with many papers. I like the subtle split effect you get by printing neutral ink black and white on the Hahnemuhle Photorag Barya, the highlights go slightly warm, where on the Platine they are neutral and very clean looking. Just gotta be careful with that paper though, it can scratch and chip easier than the Hahnemuhle papers and curls more, but it is beautiful and with no oba very stable.

John
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asnapper

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #28 on: February 13, 2015, 03:54:49 am »

For the traditional darkroom glossy paper look I think the Harman Glossy Baryta papers are hard to beat but wow do these papers curl. The Harman Glossy Art Fibre papers are also nice, and I believe the warmtone paper is OBA free, but they do not have the same high gloss finish of their Baryta range.

Another paper that hasn't so far been mentioned which is worth investigating is Innova's FibaPrint Warm Cotton Gloss which I also believe to be OBA free, though I would class it as a semi-glossy paper. Here is link to a review of the paper by Keith Cooper.

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews/paper/innova_ifa45.html

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deanwork

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #29 on: February 13, 2015, 04:13:44 pm »

Yea, the Harmon Baryta is a fine paper for bw, both the regular and warm versions. It's cool to print neutral inks on the warm verson which gives you a split betwen warm high values and netural to cool lower values. I used it for years for matching existing gelatin silver prints, and still do occasionally. The problem I have with it is that it curls so badly in the second half of the roll that I kept getting serious head strikes right in the middle of a big job and it was costing me a lot of waste and frustration.  This is also NOT good for your print heads. On the Canon printers head strikes also causes the head to heat up and you get an error message for that. I may have recently blown my main board because of these head strikes. It happened right after I had a jammed roll due to paper curling.

But you know I'm having the same issue with the Canson Platine on the second half of the roll. I end having to cut off big sheets, like 30x40 or 40x60 and flatten them out days before using. It is a definately a huge pain, and yu  risk scratchng the paper that already scraches easily, but if I want to use either of these I have no alternative. I even have this happen occasionally with the Hahnemuhle fiber gloss rolls. Part of it I belive is how long the paper has been sitting there rolled up tightly on the roll. I used to have this problem a lot with the Innova fiber gloss media, but have the least problems with Hahnemuhle Pearl and Photorag Baryta.

john


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JohnBrew

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #30 on: February 22, 2015, 09:23:10 pm »

I love Harman by Hahnemuhle Fiber Gloss Baryta. Gorgeous paper...great depth.

Sharon
The original Harman was fantastic for bw. Only paper I have used which showed no gloss differential. However it had problems in that it scratched easily and (for me anyway) developed "waves" after being mounted and framed. And I tried many methods to overcome this but to no avail. This mostly happened after a print had been framed for a gallery and had been there for several weeks. I suspect humidity had something to do with it, but no proof. Now that Hahnemuhle has taken over production, I find it identical - and still with the same problems. Still a beautiful paper to print with however. And it is just as good with color.
I love GFS and use it a lot. I stockpiled quite a bit when it appeared the company was to be no more. I must also mention that the GFS profile has also worked well for me in experimenting with other papers for bw.
Even so, my two most used papers are Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta and Photo Rag Pearl. And I can't make up my mind between the two so I keep alternating between them. The Baryta does seem slightly better with toned images.
I print with Epson 3880 and Canon 6400. If I had to do it all over again I would have purchased an additional 3880 and installed a Cone inkset instead of going with the Canon as I just don't use it enough and it takes up too much room in my small office.

Erland

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #31 on: February 23, 2015, 07:08:51 am »

I bought a sample pack from Bonjet. They had a Baryta paper that the manufacturer claims are exactly the same as Cansons Baryta Photographique. I had a couple of sheets of Canson at home and I couldn't tell any difference between them.

However in the samplepack there was a paper Bonjet calls Black & White, 290g. Produced a much better black than the Baryta and had a slightly more luster-ish surface. I'd recommend it as an alternative.
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Neil Folberg

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #32 on: February 24, 2015, 03:06:28 am »

Hello,

I am very pleased with the Harman by Hahnemuhle Gloss Baryta for B&W, also the warm tone. I have never seen anything that reproduces the look of silver-rich gelatin papers of the 1970's except this. Yes, it does have curl. I like to mount very large prints on dibond. Also true that the second half of the roll can scratch in the printer, which I handle by physically holding it until the edge of the paper rounds the bend of the platform of the printer where the paper comes out. It is a pain, and I wish it were unnecessary, but I find it worth the effort. The results are exquisite.

Neil
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Robert Boire

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #33 on: May 30, 2015, 10:54:10 am »

Hi,

Oh no......

I just came across this thread. I've been using EFP recently and its (or maybe was) my favorite paper.... but was not aware of the OBA issue.  Is this basically a long term effect and if so how long before this become a concern ?

Thanks

Robert

Mark D Segal

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Re: Best paper for black and white?
« Reply #34 on: May 30, 2015, 11:07:12 am »

It depends on the display and storage conditions. Check the Aardenburg Imaging website.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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