Newbie to "quality" photo paper

[Flummi]

As an amateur photographer, I always enjoyed putting my photos on paper. Starting with my Epson Stylus Photo 700 back in the nineties, playing with non OEM inks and CIS, making printer profiles first with Datacolor Spyder Print, now with XRite Color Munki Photo.
Most of the (many) printers I owned died due to excessive printing pause times. That is also the main reason why I avoided pigment printers so far (it is only pigment black of my Epson 7750 that gets clogged...). Starting with my first Ecotank, I didn't feel the need of any further ink experiments - I stick to OEM inks.

But what I have neglected so far was the photo paper. For a long time I was happy with the (thicker) glossy paper of LabelOcean brand. The prints were - in my eyes - "photo quality". When directly pinned to the wall, they curled after some time and the colors disappeared some months later. I thought that this was normal to home printed photos.

Starting with my new ET-8550 and an increased interest in black-and-white prints, I dived into the subject of "quality" photo papers.
I bought sample print books and paper sample packs of several manufacturers.

Up to now I ended up with the following (mid-priced) papers (of different sizes):
- Sihl glossy 280grs
- Fotospeed PF Lustre
- Fotospeed Smooth Pearl
- Fotospeed Metallic Gloss
- Fotospeed Matt Proofing
- Photolux Prof. Matte Paper
- PPD satin.

Well, that gave one and another "Wow!-Effect".
Haptics, look and feel of the surface - they give a completely new perspective on photo quality.
Especially matte papers (I never used before for photo prints) gave some photos an appropriate look.

Up to now I refrained from buying premium papers like Hahnemühles Photo Rag Baryta. Do you think it would be worth trying them, considering a 6-ink dye printer?

If you have papers that you like, I would be glad if you name them - with a short description why and for what kind of photo (e.g. portrait, landscape, architecture...).

Best regards,
Flummi

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

If you have papers that you like, I would be glad if you name them

You may consult books giving some guidance - but I won't - the paper selection is your decision - and you should play around with some combinations - even try papers you may not consider a good choice at the beginning . You left out one criteria - who is going to look to your pictures - is is private or an exhibition - or a local photo club ? You should include the overall ligntness of your viewing conditions - and very much the format as well. And again - try out several papers/surfaces - and have a view to B/W prints - you may be surprised that some color prints may look pretty dull - but once you turn up contrast and convert to B/W you may get a wow effect -

 

[Flummi]

who is going to look to your pictures

Family and friends. The strongest critic is myself.

You should include the overall ligntness of your viewing conditions

Rather dark, illuminated with high-CRI LEDs 2700K.

and very much the format as well

A4, A3, A3+

- you may be surprised that some color prints may look pretty dull - but once you turn up contrast and convert to B/W you may get a wow effect -

Starting with my new ET-8550 and an increased interest in black-and-white prints, I dived into the subject of "quality" photo papers.

Yes, you are right. I also played around with high/low key setups.

You may consult books giving some guidance - but I won't - the paper selection is your decision - and you should play around with some combinations - even try papers you may not consider a good choice at the beginning

Don't get me wrong: I'm not looking for statements like "XY is best paper for portrait".

There are hundreds of papers on the market - I can't test them all. So it would be nice to get some hints or ideas, like: "I'm happy with XY on my yz-printer. It gives portraits a smooth warm look. The smooth texture..."

even try papers you may not consider a good choice at the beginning

That`s what this thread is about

 

[Lothman]

up to A3 you get the Brilliant Supreme matte (230g, can be printed doublesided) from Calumet
https://www.calumetphoto.de/product...-doppelseitige-beschichtung-230g-m2/BRIBP0345
25,50€ for 100 sheets A4. In my Photclub we compared my prints from Epson p900 (with Farbenwerk Pigmera inks) against commercial fineart prints on Hahnemühle paper. Most people were somehow shocked that my prints matched the commercial ones for $$$$.

I rarely print high glossy but love semiglossy/lustr and use the paper from a seller called Europrint from Ebay, you get all formats up to A2.
https://www.ebay.de/sch/73452/i.htm...euro-print&Papierveredelung=Satin&_dcat=73452

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

they curled after some time and the colors disappeared some months later.

The curling effect varies very much with the paper brand

You don't know how much the paper curls when you buy it - you need to actually test for it

https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...-budget-level-glossy-papers.14865/post-129485

Cast coated papers typically have a fibrous /paper like backside - premium papers - OEM and 3rd party - are PE/RC type papers, the paper core is sandwiched between very thin PE foils and the coating is resin coated - RC which provides a better fading protection than the cast coated - cc - type budget papers

I purchased various types of paper from Europrint, the papers have a good price/performance ratio.

 

[Flummi]

I have vast stocks of CC paper which is very fine for simple/test prints and I already soaked up every information available in this forum back to 2010 . So I'm done with CC paper for now.

I already included Europrint (which nowadays is also sold at amazon) to my wishlist, remembering to look for "Backside PE" .

The Brilliant Supreme Matte is also recommended in a photography forum (lustre too). I will buy a box next time at calumet.

I tried soft-textured "FineArt Velvet 270g" from Photolux on a portrait of my wife. While the colors and shading look awsome, my wife complained about the "bumpy skin" . She was right, textured paper isn't first choice for portaits...

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

There are hundreds of papers on the market - I can't test them all.

You may buy sample packs from Fotospeed and similar paper suppliers

 

[Flummi]

I bought sample print books and paper sample packs of several manufacturers.

 

[Flummi]

I recently bought some Europrint 270/300g satin papers as well as PPD semigloss 280g.

I'm quite happy with the Europrints. Apart from the much better haptics, they show a significantly larger color-gamut compared to LabelOcean.

I profiled the papers using ccStudio and compared them with online iccView. The latter does not accept icc v4 profiles. Does anyone know a good icc viewer supporting v4 profiles?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Just stay with V 2. profiles in your workflow, there is not such a visible benefit of V.4 profiles in lots of cases, and quite a range of image editing programs don't support V.4 as well, and not Iccview either.

'Having the ability to make either ICC v2 or ICC v4 profiles users most likely will never notice the difference between the two versions. The main changes are structural and the removal of ambiguities that were not needed in the format of these files to allow for better performance in v4'

Copied from https://www.xrite.com/de/service-support/profile_version_icc_v2_or_icc_v4



I agree that the Europrint papers - of the PE/RC type - offer a good price/performance (good gamut) overall