Papers For Fine Art Prints

Some time ago I bought a Canon iPF 5000 specifically so that I could take advantage of the much touted new papers which purported to do a good job imitating traditional glossy dried matte photographic paper, long the standard fine art surface of most photographers.

it should be understood that while this surface was 'the standard', it doesn't necessarily mean it was or should be the gold standard by which everything else should be compared.

Truth is that matte silver papers are incapable of producing a decent black and have generally been shunned. The surface was very visible in dark areas. The same is NOT true of matte inkjet papers which both show a fairly decent black (OK, not tested nearly as dark as glossy papers and glossy inks, but pretty darn good none the less) and a surface which shows no reflections at all and so is essentially invisible. This is a huge improvement over silver matte papers and has made them the new 'standard' for fine art work. The lack of surface awareness makes them better in some ways than even traditional glossy dried matte which still has some reflection issues.

Now however, the issue is one of comparing the new inkjet 'glossy dried matte' papers. Specifically I'm talking about Crane Museo Silver Rag, Hahnemuhle Pearl and Innova Fibaprint F Gloss. I have now had a chance to try all three papers and here's my observations about these papers in general then specific comments about each paper.

All three papers have a slight sheen to the unprinted surface however this isn't nearly as shiny as the black ink so the result is that at angles, the ink really does look like it's sitting on top of the paper and the light areas are noticeably duller than the dark areas. This is the reverse of bronzing in which flat inks sat on top of glossy paper. I don't see why we couldn't have a slightly glossier paper which matches the gloss of the inks.

The blacks are good and yes, holding a print in hand, they do look deeper than matte prints though oddly it's more to do with picking up surface reflections than actually looking blacker. Under 150 watt spot lights I dare say the difference would be a lot more noticeable but that's not the real world of print viewing, in home or in galleries.

Silver Rag - was the first of the new papers. The paper is noticeably cream coloured especially when compared to the others.