How many kinds of photo paper are there?

[ghwellsjr]

I'm planning on doing some fade tests and I was wondering how many different kinds of photo papers there are. This week, Staples is having a half-price sale on some of their HP photo papers so I want to get some of them but I'm not sure which ones to get to have a good representation of the different types of photo papers available.

I previously got a partial (but confusing) answer around this post. I'm wondering if there are just two kinds of photo paper, swellable and nanoporous (or microporous) or are these just two specialized papers and most general photo papers are a third type?

 

[Grandad35]

AFAIK, those are the only two types of "inkjet photo paper". Paper with a swellable coating is only suited for dye based inks, while paper with a porous coating can be used with either pigment or dye based inks.

Ilford has a good description of the paper types:
http://www.ilford.com/en/pdf/prods/galerie/correctpaper.pdf

 

[ghwellsjr]

At the end of that pdf is a comment that porous coated papers will experience a certain amount of fading in a very short time from interacting with gases even in complete darkness. So if this is the type of paper that almost all photo papers are, what's the point in doing a light fade test?

And someone pointed out that swellable papers are not resistant to water. Isn't there any photo paper that doesn't suffer from both these problems?

 

[qwertydude]

Light definitely plays the more important role in fading. Yes ozone fading is a problem even without light but I have a few photos that I printed out a couple years ago on Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II (porous type) that still looks new, these were kept in a stack out of light but otherwise just sitting in a stack above my desk.

I'm doing another test of paper and ink for my Artisan 50 with a CISS from aaadealsalways so generic ink, supposedly of "higher quality". So far after 6 weeks in the in the window things are looking about the same as my old Canon tests. It's looking like almost all decent quality dye inks fade at about the same rate. The biggest factor is the paper you print on. Swellable, HP Premium Plus, paper is the most fade resistant which is the top. It has no discernable fading so I didn't include a freshly printed control, Kirkland glossy is fair, Meritline's budget paper is pretty bad. All photo's were identical in look for the start and were profiled for their individual paper.

 

[martin0reg]

@ghwells
the point is that we would see exactly how fast a certain paper ink combination fade. That is more useful than the general assumption that dye on micro fades fast.

- dye on micro: fades from gas (particular ozone) and from light (particular UV)
- dye on swellable: fading is slower, but other downsides?
- pigment (only) on micro: good resistance to gas, light and water

Here are tests of epson dye and pigment on epson paper (micro)
http://www.wilhelm-research.com/epson/WIR_EpR280_2008_01_16.pdf
http://www.wilhelm-research.com/epson/WIR_Ep_R2400_2007_12_28.pdf
These are complex tests and much to read, but you can see that the downside of dye vs. pigment is bigger regarding gas than regarding light.

But how good are non OEM inks and papers today?
I am looking forward to your tests.
You can compare totally different combinations, main thing is to compare them under the same conditions.
such as: 1. open sunlight - 2.framed behind glass - 3.in an album
So we would have real world test of different material in different presentation or storing.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I was planning on doing my test in open sunlight with controls sealed in a ziplock bag in darkness but now I think I will also include a set unsealed in darkness. I wasn't planning on putting any behind glass or in an album because I figured that if they would withstand fading in open sunlight, anything else would be better. Also, if I were to include glass, shouldn't I also do glass in sunlight and glass in room light and glass in darkness? And when you say in an album, do you mean inside protective plastic sleeves or merely stacked between the pages of the album?

Also, I want to confirm my original question: are there just two kinds of photo paper, swellable and porous?

 

[martin0reg]

I think in general there are these two different sorts, but it isn't always displayed on the package what sort.
And there may be special coatings of "fine art" paper.

My proposition (open-glass-album) should cover the three most used ways of presentation and storing.
Therefore the different results of these three would be interesting, e.g. how much better is behind glass and in darkness.

Nobody knows how much ozone is in your house or in your drawer - but anyhow we would have a comparison of different ink-paper-combinations in the same everyday conditions.

 

[fotofreek]

There is a third type of paper used with inkjet printers - coated matte paper. While not used for top quality photo printing, it is quite good for graphic and photo printing when used for greeting cards, posters, and other such projects for which you would not use glossy paper. Also, I don't know if the different levels of gloss papers - glossy, satin, etc, would have different fade characteristics.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I have looked at several manufacturer's descriptions of matte photo paper and none of them say "coated". Do you just mean any matte photo paper will automatically be coated or is there a particular one that you know of that is also coated?

 

[fotofreek]

Dye based printing of photos or most graphics on plain paper (copy machine paper, card stock, stationary quality paper) generally has a flat look with less intensity of color than with photo papers. Matte photo paper, if it is truly manufactured for dye-based inkjet printers, has a coating that, I believe, is clay-based. General purpose paper that is described as suitable for inkjet or laser printers or copy machines isn't coated. Matte inkjet photo paper that I've used is coated. You will notice that some photo matte paper is "double sided". It is coated on both sides for double sided printing.

I've used Kodak, Epson, and Staples inkjet photo matte paper and all performed well. As I've noted in other posts, the Staples photo supreme double sided matte paper is very good for greeting cards printed on dye-based inkjet printers. It prints well on both sides and has a good "weight" and feel that resembles card stock.