What happen to Canson pricing?

[aaronchan]

I live in Hong Kong and just called Canson China, they told me they are not going to stock any more inkjet paper in China Shanghai warehouse.
Also if I want to place an order, I will need to wait for their seasonal shippment to come, which is 4 times a year.
They suggested me to get it from other countries, so I went on Adorama and B&H.
The price of BFK Rives of 44" is $470!!! What the heck?!
This is the most expensive 44" paper I've ever seen by far.
I used to be a Canson BFK fan but now I might have to switch to something else.

Is the rest of the world are doing this price with BFK Rives as well?

aaron

[Geraldo Garcia]

Here in Brazil the prices are always way higher than other countries. The BFK 44" ranges from US$600.00 to US$1,000.00 (lowest price for business higher for consumer).
What may or may not be useful to you is knowing that BFK, Arches Velin 315g and Arches Aquarelle 44" usually cost the same. This way you may be able to spot price distortions.
Looks like Canson is putting a more expensive price tag on the papers produce by the Moulin D'arches, but that is not exactly new. Maybe is a "luxury tag" or maybe their cost has increased on that facility in the last years. Anyway it is a shame. Very nice papers, but hard to justify the cost when you compare to other papers from Canson, like Edition Etching for instance.

[Ernst Dinkla]

Strange policy where you expect that the Euro exchange rate lowers EU product prices soon abroad. The transport costs did not increase either. Maybe Canson China waits for the lower price. What is wrong with Hahnemühle products? Vote with your wallet.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

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

[aaronchan]

I just did a big job with Hahnemuhle's Photo Rag and it got F-up
Their paper is very sensetive. I'm not gonna go through the whole story but that's the fact.

aaron

[Alan Goldhammer]

I just did a big job with Hahnemuhle's Photo Rag and it got F-up
Their paper is very sensetive. I'm not gonna go through the whole story but that's the fact.

aaron

Still it would be useful to provide a little more information than you have.  I use Photo Rag Ultra Smooth sheets and have not had any issues.  What is the sensitivity you are seeing?

[Ernst Dinkla]

Used Canson Rives BFK and several small "ridges" lay on top of the coating with increasing height towards the roll core. So they went unnoticed till at 3 to 4 meters from the core.
The customer was here, the prints were rejected of course. The customer went back home and checked the other prints made with that roll, some of them already framed. In the end I had to reprint 3/4 of the roll and I got compensation from Canson. Experiences like that always cost time/money and the compensation does not cover that. True, there are several HM prints here that have to go to my distributor for similar defects but I print way more on HM than Canson. I have had Innova paper defects too. I do not see a direct relation between the price and less flaws for the 3 brands I mention here. Big fan of Museum Etching these days.


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

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

[deanwork]

The Canson matte papers are too damn expensive, but I still use them like crazy here in the states.

I don't see the flaking of black areas with the Canson matte media that I always experienced with the similar Hahnemuhle papers, all of them.

However - I did just experience that same situation of several bw prints with the Canson Platine with both the HP and Canon inks! Black areas flaking off just out of the printer. I was pissed. That paper looks very nice but it is quite fragile. It is the only paper of this kind that I have ever seen that you can fold over 4 times and still easily tear it in half by hand. It is SO soft and scratches easily. The Hahnemuhle fiber gloss papers are a lot more durable reliable for me. So I use Canson for matte rag and Hah for fiber gloss these days unless someone makes me do otherwise.

john

[jsiva]

http://shadesofpaper.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3407_1556_1924&products_id=4301

It's $400, and they sent me an email about  10% off sale, that makes it $360.

[samueljohnchia]

Big fan of Museum Etching these days.

My favourite matte paper too. But at 39 feet, Museum Etching has always worked out to be slightly more expensive than BFK Rives which comes in 50 feet rolls. Comparing the prices from the major US retailers.

I had problems with ME early on with too many cotton seeds and colored bits of debris embedded in the paper coating. Flaking too as usual. Curlier paper than the Cansons too. I have not used ME recently, but thinking of doing so, after seeing Tyler Boley's lovely review of the paper. I like the clay coating from Canson, but it shatters into shards when cut, and requires constant vacuuming of the printer after every print.

[jdoyle1713]

World wide price Increase. The US Increase took effect this month.

Cheers
Jim Doyle
http://www.shadesofpaper.com

[hugowolf]

... I like the clay coating from Canson, but it shatters into shards when cut, and requires constant vacuuming of the printer after every print.

What clay coating? I see no evidence of kaolin use. Do you have any sources/links?

Brian A

[samueljohnchia]

What clay coating? I see no evidence of kaolin use. Do you have any sources/links?

Brian A

Clay coatings are not necessarily kaolin? But perhaps I am usng the wrong term, pardon me. Miles Hecker's palatine review (http://www.wyofoto.com/Canson_Platine_review.html) says Canson uses 'fine white silica'.

Whatever it is, the paper when cut leaves a great deal of paper dust, like shards.

[Richard.Wills]

I'm with you on the shattering - makes trimming paper to the image almost impossible (can be done with the print face down on tissue, with a fresh 10A for each cut). Similar issues with the Harman gloss baryta. Fortunately, most clients go with a border, in which case the shattered silica isn't noticeable. Platine is still my favourite paper for prints from old 35mm scans.

Just called my distributor, and in the UK at least, we're not seeing a price hike on the Canson papers, which makes a nice change from the usual $:£ parity that we see with most things photographic...

[Ernst Dinkla]

My favourite matte paper too. But at 39 feet, Museum Etching has always worked out to be slightly more expensive than BFK Rives which comes in 50 feet rolls. Comparing the prices from the major US retailers.

I had problems with ME early on with too many cotton seeds and colored bits of debris embedded in the paper coating. Flaking too as usual. Curlier paper than the Cansons too. I have not used ME recently, but thinking of doing so, after seeing Tyler Boley's lovely review of the paper. I like the clay coating from Canson, but it shatters into shards when cut, and requires constant vacuuming of the printer after every print.

ME is about 5% less expensive per M2 than BFK in my case, the difference may be more now given Canson's recent price changes.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

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

[aaronchan]

Still it would be useful to provide a little more information than you have.  I use Photo Rag Ultra Smooth sheets and have not had any issues.  What is the sensitivity you are seeing?

We are currently working on a very big job, over 2 thousand square feet.
And all used HFA Photo Rag 308 paper.
After printing and trimming, we float mounted the print on acid free foamboard with acid free adhesive, then we framed it and sealed the back to avoid air get's in and out easily. We have been doing museum hand craft framing for almost 10 years for top of the line museums and galleries all over the world, we know what we are doing.

But the edge of the paper start to turn yellow last week. The only good news is we didn't ship out anything to our client yet.
So now, we have to take everything apart, re-print, mounting and some of them need to be hot foil, then frame everything back in.
Basically we will lose money on this job but still, we have to finish the work in a perfect way.

Today I had a meeting with HFA region GM. Basically what he said is all Photo Rag paper from HFA are very frigiel. It has to be lived in a very clean atmosphere, otherwise, the paper will turns into yellow easily. Specially we are in China.

His suggestion was to secure the paper, we better use liquid lamination / coating to seal the paper base and avoid the contact to the air.

I can understand what he was trying to say, but what we have in our office is a framed picture, printed on the same paper, and finished in the same way, but still got no yellowing issue for 3 years. I'm not sure if this is luck or what but right now I am not happy because like what I've said, I will need to print over 2 thousand square feet agian...........


aaron

[disneytoy]

A good lesson for us. I'm just getting started, printing for clients. My prices are based on ink and media cost. If I get hit with reprints, I'll lose money.

Do you have a website aaronchan? Sounds like you do very high end work. How are you doing the foil? For what purpose? Sounds interesting.

Thanks

Maxi

[aaronchan]

My "new" printing company does not have a website yet since I just moved out from my old company. (I sold my previous share to my old partner in China and relocated to Hong Kong.) We mostly do work for private corp, artists, museums and galleries. Yes, we do high end work because we charge a very high price. The reason why is we do batch high end printing and can never afford any imperfect of our product, including the prints, mounting and framing. With some clients, if there was a defects on the print, sometimes we can give out discount and just let it go, and they would be still happy with it. But with some clients, like five stars hotel or corp building, they would never compromise imperfection. We do gold foil on printed image sometimes, depends on the client's demand.

aaron

[John Caldwell]

Don't understand Aaron's observation regarding rapid yellowing. I have PR 308 prints that are several years old, not protected in any special way, but they're not yellow. Wonder if the paper formulation has changed as Aaron is reporting this as a new observation.

John-

[howardm]

I wonder if airborne pollutants from industry are  reacting w/ the paper.

[aaronchan]

Don't understand Aaron's observation regarding rapid yellowing. I have PR 308 prints that are several years old, not protected in any special way, but they're not yellow. Wonder if the paper formulation has changed as Aaron is reporting this as a new observation.

John-

This is what I've been trying to tell to Hahnemuhle.
I have a printed picture on PR308, mounted and framed in the same way I just did for this job 3 years ago, and the print is absolutely fine!
But they were telling me it was just my luck since the air pollution problem is getting worse in China, and the humidity changed alot in our region, that might gonna speed up the yellowing problem.
Well, what else can I do, they're keep telling me that Rag paper is extremely sensetive. I was living in NY for over 10 years and used PR308 for quite some time as well and never had a single problem like this. Maybe our "Chinese" air is just as bad as it is......

aaron