Comparing papers: surprising results

[DanK]

I am partway through comparing a wide range of papers on my Prograf 1000 using one of the Outback TIFF test images. I am finding some results rather surprising.

My first batch was luster papers of diverse types. This included Canson Baryta Photographique, Canson Rag Platine, and Red River Arctic Polar Luster, among others.

What surprised me is the relatively minor differences among the three I listed. The three differ in OBA content--the arctic polar has OBAs, the baryta has very low OBAs, and the Platine has none, and that is apparent in the white tones: the artic polar has a colder white tone than the others. However, beyond that, the differences seem minor to me. The gray ramps (white-black rate of change) are very similar. As that would suggest, shadow detail is similar. Facial tones are similar, although there is a slight difference in the palest face in the test panel, as you would expect from the white balance differences. Grays look slightly colder/bluer on the Artic polar, again as one would expect from the white balance differences. The baryta appears the least glossy and the Arctic polar the most glassy, but the differences are modest, and I don't know how apparent they would be behind glass. Color rendition was similar, although some colors appear a bit more intense on the Arctic Polar.

This is not to say that the papers are identical. They certainly aren't. However, given all of what I have read on the web, I expected more dramatic differences than I found.

Anyone have similar or different experiences with this?

I'm just now starting on rag and fine art papers, and I expect the differences will be larger with those.

[Manfred M]

No surprises in what you have written Dan. In fact, I'm fairly certain that some of the papers marketed by different companies are in fact likely the same paper. One of the fine art printers I know has tested both the Epson Legacy Baryta and Canson Baryta Photographique and is convinced that they are the same paper.

There are only so many paper producers out there, so this is not an unexpected result. So far as I know, neither Canon nor Epson actually make their own papers. At least one other company's whose papers I have tested (I can't remember if it was Red River or Moab) clearly were only a distributor of paper that they have sourced elsewhere. I'm told that Ilford's Washi paper comes from Japan, not the UK, etc. So far as I know, Hahnemühle and Canson own their own paper production facilities.

OBAs in papers tend to fluoresce blue when used with light sources that emit UV and this is why these papers tend to look cooler toned. In the "old days" where homes were lit with tungsten light, this was far more noticeable. Papers with OBAs look different under light sources that have a UV component sunlight, fluorescent, halogen and LED versus classical tungsten light bulbs. As these are being used less, we don't really see papers with OBAs under UV free lighting very often any more.

Ultimately, I suspect it will come down to "gut feel" and price. You will end up using the papers that most represent a look and feel that you like.

[DanK]

What surprised me was not small differences across vendors. What surprised me is small differences among types: baryta, RC luster, and rag luster.

As a second step, I just put all three of these papers under UV-protective glass, which is the normal way I frame images. Predictably, under daylight, this reduced the impact of OBAs. The two Canson papers had similar whites under glass. The the brighter/colder white of the Arctic Polar was reduced--it was no longer brighter, but it was still a bit colder. Under halogen lights, again as one would expect, the UV glass didn't have a large effect.

The reason I found this surprising is that the web is full of raves about various papers. In this case, while there are differences, I doubt that anyone seeing these images hung behind UV glass would have noticed that the papers were different if the images weren't adjacent.

I'm guessing that it will be a different story when I am done testing fine art and matte papers. I don't use them all that often, so I have been putting that off.

[Manfred M]

I doubt that anyone seeing these images hung behind UV glass would have noticed that the papers were different if the images weren't adjacent.

Agreed! Glass is the great equalizer. In fact, I would suggest that unless I took the images out of their frames, I would have trouble seeing which paper I used. I leave a bit of a border on my frame prints and that is where I can usually detect the texture, but I have to be quite close up and the light has to be good.

What surprised me was not small differences across vendors. What surprised me is small differences among types: baryta, RC luster, and rag luster.

I find that the baryta papers seem to show deeper blacks than the rc luster. I have not ever used a rag luster, so have no experience with them.

The reason I found this surprising is that the web is full of raves about various papers.

Not at all surprising as the evaluations are done without the papers being under glass and under gallery lighting conditions. That's where the differences, especially in texture, are most apparent.

[rudi]

…...Anyone have similar or different experiences with this?.....

Let me repeat what I said in your previous thread: choice of papers post 16

Dan, I just read the article by Mark Dubovoy you are referring too . At the end he says:

…...While the color gamut of the Platine Fibre Rag is quite good, it is definitely not as good as the color gamut of Baryta Photographique. The same holds true in a comparison with Ilford Gold Fibre Silk. Note how the Baryta papers extend further into the more saturated reds, greens, purples and blues.

The real question is whether this is noticeable in practice. The answer isyes. If you are looking for a paper with electric reds, or super saturated blues, this is not the paper for you...... ...

It was maybe true back than, but over the years, papers have changed, print technology has changed and I can say that for now, to me the answer is a definitif no, for most real life photographs. Most people will not notice any difference just by looking at the same prints on those papers. You can easily feel the difference between C.Platine and C Bar P.
My opinion is not scientific but based on usage. And I can fullheartly say that Ilford Gold Fiber Silk, Canson Barytha Photographique (and by extension Epson Legacy Baryta, and without any doubt there is a Red River Palo Duro, and others.... ) are strikingly similar (but not identical) in output/gamut, texture, and feel. Print out the same test targets on the different media, and they will be very dificult to tell from one another.
My point being: It doesn't matter which brand you choose, they all have high quality products. ...

[DanK]

Hi Rudi,

Sorry if my question was vague. I wasn’t asking about preferences. I was asking whether others had found the resulting images less similar than I did. Under UV glass, the images are extremely similar—especially the two Canson papers.

I think my default paper will now be Canson Baryta, but I doubt most people viewing my framed images will notice that I changed unless I put images on the different papers right next to each other, and perhaps even not then.

Dan


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[rudi]

..., but I doubt most people viewing my framed images will notice that I changed unless I put images on the different papers right next to each other, and perhaps even not then.

Dan

I completely agree with that !!

[Shadowman]

Your thread reminded me that I have to compare two brands (Epson, Inkpress) of metallic luster papers, specs show a slight difference in gsm and a 0.1mil difference in thickness but I don't think either will affect the output as long as I use the correct profile and hopefully the printer's feed mechanism won't be affected. One issue that might affect output is the feed direction that I use, I can feed the paper manually which won't create any bending to the surface.

[Manfred M]

Your thread reminded me that I have to compare two brands (Epson, Inkpress) of metallic luster papers, specs show a slight difference in gsm and a 0.1mil difference in thickness but I don't think either will affect the output as long as I use the correct profile and hopefully the printer's feed mechanism won't be affected. One issue that might affect output is the feed direction that I use, I can feed the paper manually which won't create any bending to the surface.

John - a 1 mil difference in thickness is 1/1000th inch. You will not be able to detect that unless you are measuring with a micrometer. Same goes for a slight difference in grammage. The difference between a paper that is rated at 310 gsm (grams / square meter) and one rated at 315 gsm is about 1.6%. Again, something that you are going to have trouble measuring.

Don't forget that paper absorbs moisture and all of the figures we see quoted by the manufacturers are based on standardized tests. The measuring accuracy of the instruments and even the test methods will vary.

According to this article I just found, a sheet of paper can have a thickness variance of ±5% whereas the manufacturing specs of paper is up to ±7%.

http://www.paper-paper.com/table.html


We are writing about paper here, not precision optics or mechanics.

[Round Tuit]

Hi Dan,
I am not surprised by your results. I ran the same test that you did with the following papers: Hahnemuhle Museum Etching, Canson Baryta Photographique and Harman Glossy Fibre Art Warmtone. Three very different paper finishes yet, when lit to avoid reflections on the luster and the glossy papers, the resulting images are surprisingly similar. The baryta is the whitest and the other two are warmer toned but very slightly. I was very impressed by the Museum Etching paper which of course does not suffer from reflections. I think that it will become my paper of choice and I will probably frame my prints without glass to showcase the texture of the paper.

[DanK]

I'm a bit surprised that the Hahnemuhle Museum Etching wasn't more different than you found; it ought to have a more limited gamut, and the few prints I have done on matte paper do look different, even under glass.

I think in the end, I will end up with three papers for 90% of my printing: one satin/luster, probably Canson Baryta Photgraphique; one matte or fine art paper; and one metallic paper for a limited class of images. I'm just starting on sorting out the matte or fine art papers, but I now don't expect the differences between them to be all that large, once framed.

[Round Tuit]

I'm a bit surprised that the Hahnemuhle Museum Etching wasn't more different than you found; it ought to have a more limited gamut, and the few prints I have done on matte paper do look different, even under glass.

The smaller gamut does show up in the gradients and the colour patches but its effect is much more subtle than I expected. The Hahnemuhle print is also slightly duller than the other two and this show up mostly in the face of the young girl and the babies. My next step will be to find the right level of output sharpening and brightness and contrast adjustments to optimize the print quality.

[DanK]

I do a lot of flowers. In addition to printing them to hang, which I have done entirely with luster and satin RC papers so far, I print them on bright white matte card stock (Red River Polar Matte). Because some are intensely colored, the reduced gamut is often very apparent when I soft proof. Usually, I can get them to look fine, although with a smaller gamut, but some have been tough. For example, I had a very hard time with the reds in this one:

[Shadowman]

Dan,

Post#13, I've had similar concerns with reds but opposite outcomes, I do most of my editing in Elements but there are times when onscreen the reds don't look right and I'll bring the image into LR and softproof, usually it'll show out of gamut for web browsers but fine for my selected printer.

[DanK]

Dan,

Post#13, I've had similar concerns with reds but opposite outcomes, I do most of my editing in Elements but there are times when onscreen the reds don't look right and I'll bring the image into LR and softproof, usually it'll show out of gamut for web browsers but fine for my selected printer.

Do you use a color managed browser? I don't know why a browser should have a smaller gamut than the monitor on which it is displayed.

Good printers have wider gamuts than sRGB monitors. I'm probably going to switch to a wide-gamut monitor this year precisely for this reason. I mostly don't print on matte papers, so my current sRGB monitor can't display colors that my printer can display on RC and baryta papers. However, matte papers sometimes have more limited gamuts.

[Shadowman]

Do you use a color managed browser? I don't know why a browser should have a smaller gamut than the monitor on which it is displayed.

Good printers have wider gamuts than sRGB monitors. I'm probably going to switch to a wide-gamut monitor this year precisely for this reason. I mostly don't print on matte papers, so my current sRGB monitor can't display colors that my printer can display on RC and baryta papers. However, matte papers sometimes have more limited gamuts.

Hi Dan,

No I don't and I wouldn't even bother adjusting the image based on that gamut warning as it would seem fruitless to do so, I only mentioned it as what I thought might be an out of gamut image only showed so for that feature; it didn't show out of gamut for my printer, but to my eyes I thought the reds in the particular image would result in an unfavorable print.

[Round Tuit]

Re: Post #12 - According to the LR Proofing algorithm, the Museum Etching paper has a wider gamut than the other two papers which have identical gamut as far as I can tell. So the slight difference in gamut that I attributed to the Museum Etching being smaller is actually the other way around.
Re: Post #15 - I would highly recommend a wide gamut monitor. How can you properly assess colours that you cannot see on your sRGB monitor?

[Manfred M]

I do a lot of flowers. In addition to printing them to hang, which I have done entirely with luster and satin RC papers so far, I print them on bright white matte card stock (Red River Polar Matte). Because some are intensely colored, the reduced gamut is often very apparent when I soft proof. Usually, I can get them to look fine, although with a smaller gamut, but some have been tough. For example, I had a very hard time with the reds in this one:

Yes, those brilliant reds and yellows can be quite challenging to print. The gamut matte papers is often not going to handle these colours, but they can be less problematic with a higher gloss paper. This is one case where I would definitely explore using perceptual rendering intent rather than relative colorimetric rendering intent. This will often give you a bit more tonal range in the print although the colours will not be quite as accurate.

[Manfred M]

Hi Dan,

No I don't and I wouldn't even bother adjusting the image based on that gamut warning as it would seem fruitless to do so, I only mentioned it as what I thought might be an out of gamut image only showed so for that feature; it didn't show out of gamut for my printer, but to my eyes I thought the reds in the particular image would result in an unfavorable print.

I've had this discussion with a few other printers and there is definitely no consensus on proceeding with images that show OOG areas. In general, if the OOG are very limited, I will just leave them. If there are large areas, I will usually check out some of the other papers I use. When I see a problem on a matte paper, often the OOG goes away with a paper that has a glossier finish.

Sometimes a minor tweak of the saturation or even moving the mid-point a tiny bit eliminates the OOG issue.

I've started looking at other alternatives too. I saw a video that John Paul Caponigro has put out where he pulls up the original image in a window and then pulls up the soft-proofed i mage. He then edits the soft-proofed version to try to get it closer to the original. I have not played around with that technique, but it certainly looks like it might be useful in some instances.

[Manfred M]

I would highly recommend a wide gamut monitor. How can you properly assess colours that you cannot see on your sRGB monitor?

I agree 100% André and it is not a 100% solution, especially if the images have very vibrant and saturated colours.

I tend to edit using the ProPhoto colour space so some colours cannot be reproduced on a wide gamut screen, but the printer can print them. The screen driver will apply the rendering intent to turn the OOG values into values that can be displayed. When I print, the those colours will not be the same as what the screen displays, so sometimes there is a bit of a surprise. That's why I test print.

One of the master printers I work with generally works only in AdobeRGB so that this does not happen. Again, there is no "right answer".