choice of papers

[Manfred M]

I printed only one panorama style (65" x 17") image since owning the printer, it wasn't your typical panorama but an almost life size image of a model. I believe you can still print a panorama on some printers which don't have the roll bar but sizes are limited.

I didn't buy it to print panos per se, but rather to give me more flexibility in determining the print size. If I want to print a full size uncropped image, I need paper that is 17" x 25-1/2" rather than the standard 17" x 22" sheets that are sold.

[DanK]

Dan - If I remember my mineralogy correctly, barium sulphate (baryte) can be viewed as an OBA as it fluoresces under UV. It's what gives baryta papers their whiteness and reflectivity.

Thanks.

I think I am becoming obsessed with OBAs.

Two unrelated thoughts. First, I wonder if barium sulfate is any less subject to the problem of degradation that affects the OBAs used with RC paper.

Second, I think I was muddling together two things about OBAs, and I don't think I'm alone in this: their impact on brightness, and their impact on "whiteness," that is, making papers less yellow. As I understand it, OBAs do the former by absorbing nonvisible light and fluorescing in the visible spectrum. The CIE brightness numbers I have seen for papers with OBAs are all over 100, and some are far above 100. However, one can brighten, in principle, without affecting white balance, and vice-versa. I'm guessing that OBAs shift the white balance toward the blue end because they absorb more from the UV end of the spectrum and fluoresce more at that end of the visible spectrum.

However this works, I think for my purposes it's good to separate the two. I just got my first box of Canson Platine Fiber Rag, and at first glance, it appears to be a nice, cool white. It has no OBAs. It has a lower reflectance than RC papers, but given that I frame almost everything behind UV glass, that effect will be lessened. It has a semi-gloss finish with a subtle texture, with smaller dimples than the satin and luster RC papers I have used.

Since my major objection to most papers without OBAs was the warm cast, not reflectance, amd because I want to create archival prints, I think I may have found my new default paper for times when I don't want the texture of a matte or fine art paper.

We are supposed to be hit with a big storm Saturday evening that will last 24 hours or so, so if the power doesn't fail, I should have ample time, between sessions of snow removal, to play with this paper.

[Manfred M]

I think I am becoming obsessed with OBAs.

So it seems....

There are two types of images where I tend to not use papers with OBAs. Portraits and warm tone landscapes (fall colours, golden hour, as examples). I find that the warmer tones enhance these images and I tend to go a bit warmer than neutral when I print portraits and this just enhances the shots.

Shots that tend to be cooler toned, like snowscapes, blue hour and night shots I tend to go to papers with OBAs as they tend to look good on cooler tone papers.

Anything else I go with whatever I happen to feel like at the time.

In general when I look at the results from Wilhelm Research, OBAs generally not a necessarily something that jumps out as a significant concern to the prints I make for archival reasons.

I hope the winter storm doesn't cause too much grief. Two photographers I know have hurt themselves recently shoveling snow. One dislocated his index finger on his right hand and the other broke his wrist (patch of ice under the snow) so both are out of action or working at reduced capacity with their cameras right now. We are "enjoying" a polar vortex that is delivering the coldest days of the winter so far -26C / -15F last night; not conditions that have me running outside with my camera either.

[rudi]

I highly recommend that you print well known testimages for evaluation/comparing the different papers.
Those can be found at : http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/printer-test-images/
I use the outback #049: http://www.outbackphoto.com/printing...049/essay.html

On the back, I write the papertype and the important printsettings. I print it on a regular basis and keep them also stored in a separate box for later comparison, or checking iff reprofiling is needed etc.....

[Shadowman]

I highly recommend that you print well known testimages for evaluation/comparing the different papers.
Those can be found at : http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/printer-test-images/
I use the outback #049: http://www.outbackphoto.com/printing...049/essay.html

On the back, I write the papertype and the important printsettings. I print it on a regular basis and keep them also stored in a separate box for later comparison, or checking iff reprofiling is needed etc.....

That's a good idea, I also sometimes write exif data especially if I'm comparing visual results of different camera settings or different cameras or lenses.

[Manfred M]

I highly recommend that you print well known testimages for evaluation/comparing the different papers.
Those can be found at : http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/printer-test-images/
I use the outback #049: http://www.outbackphoto.com/printing...049/essay.html

On the back, I write the papertype and the important printsettings. I print it on a regular basis and keep them also stored in a separate box for later comparison, or checking iff reprofiling is needed etc.....

Agree 100% Rudi

I go a step further and use an editable test page that lets me embed my own images in it and lets me edit the content so that I can print the paper information, the printer information and the print driver right into the image; without having to write this information on the back of the print. I can also use any colour space I want so I use ProPhoto as that gives me less limits than either sRGB (typical of the test images found on the net) or Adobe RGB (a colour space my printer can exceed). That way I can use images that I have printed and understand as well.

I actually do two prints per paper as I will do one using the relative colorimetric rendering intent and one with perceptual.




It's the first thing I do when I try a new paper.

[DanK]

Rudi—excellent suggestion.

Manfred—where can one find the test page you use?


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[DanK]

Rudi and Manfred,

Do you print them plain vanilla, or do so soft proof?

Dan


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[rudi]

Rudi and Manfred,

Do you print them plain vanilla, or do so soft proof?

Dan

The outback testimage #049 is a prophoto RGB tiff file, that I print as it is. No softproofing, When comparing different papers, the paper should be the only variable...
I suppose you know this already: Printer driver must be set correctly, 'no colour management' should be selected. Select the ‘Paper Type’ description that matches the paper type being used, usually given by the manufacturer.
And the appropriate profile off course.
Choose the same rendering intent for the different papers.

[Manfred M]

Rudi and Manfred,

Do you print them plain vanilla, or do so soft proof?

Dan


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Short answer; "yes".

Long answer - I use soft proofing for a lot of things:

1. Paper selection - while I might have a specific paper in mind for the print, if I get a lot of out-of-gamut (OOG) areas in the image, I will often check out other papers in soft proofing to see which one will reduce the OOG areas. I use the OOG indicator to see what areas are causing the issues. This tends to be more of an issue with matte finishes and often switching to a lustre paper fixes the issue.

2. Look at which rendering intent gives me the results I like the best. Looking at the soft proofing outThis is often linked to what I see from point 1. I rarely try to tweak the image a lot to bring the OOG into a range that the printer / paper will handle, but sometimes try slightly darkening or lightening those areas to help. Often I don't touch them at all.

3. I will use soft proofing and will add a bit of mid-tone contrast to crisp up the image, based on what I see in soft proofing.

4. When I do a large print I will definitely make test prints to see how the image actually comes out. I find that soft proofing is a 90% solution and test prints get me to a 100%. I generally do 4" x 5" test prints (on a larger paper - I just reposition where I print the test print) to get me to the 100% solution. I generally end up doing 1 or 2 full image test prints to get the colours and details nailed. I will also sometimes print part of an image full size to check out how the output sharpening looks. There have been some images that I ended up doing 5 or 6 test prints before I was satisfied with the result.

[DanK]

Thanks very much, Rudi and Manfred. Sorry, my question was vague; it was only about the test images. I always soft proof for real prints. And yes, I know the appropriate settings. One of the unanticipated benefits of having selected the Canon Prograf 1000 over the Epson P800 when I bought a new printer recently is that Canon firmware is quite consistent across printers--at least, across the 5 I have used. Therefore, when I turned on the new one, virtually all of the settings were just where I expected them, making it less likely that I would accidentally overlook one.

I could see two ways of thinking about this. My first thought was what Rudi wrote: do no soft proofing in order to make the paper the sole variable. My second thought was that this may not show you the best the paper can do. I think on balance, the first serves my purposes best.

So far, we haven't lost power, and my printer is happily chugging along next to me. However, the snow has turned to sleet, and it will soon become rain, followed by a flash freeze later today, so I may not get through all the papers... (South of here, some areas had 1 cm of ice by 10 AM.)

[Manfred M]

Thanks for the clarification Dan.

I agree with Rudi. For the test page I print "plain vanilla" and do not soft proof or output sharpen. What is of most interest to me are the B&W swatches to see at what point I can start seeing at what value I can start seeing details in the lightest tones as well as the darkest tones. I'm also interested in where the coloured test swatches go out of gamut (this is why I print in both rendering intents).

While the Epson drivers are consistent within a generation of printers (I've done P600 and P800 side by side tests), they do vary between generations of printers where the ink sets change. My 3880 used an ink set called UltraChrome K3 and the P800 uses UltraChrome HD ink set. The blacks are superior in the newer ink set. This is something I can definitely see when I compare the test images I printed on the 3880 and the P800 on the same papers.

[rudi]

….... My second thought was that this may not show you the best the paper can do...

You are completely right about that. I should have elaborated a little bit more....
For the intial testing I always follow a standardized procedure. Later on for the same paper usual more testimages are printed, using a different rendering intent, sometimes different paper type settings, with my own icc profile.. trying to get the best out off the paper...but I don't 'change' anything on the testimage itself, so print as downloaded.

[HannahHarding]

Thanks for the ideas.
Some ideas at http://essaypapers.reviews/