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Paper Chase - Another End of Year Report 2008

by Mike McNamee

The last time we brought things together in the magazine was Paper Chase 12, back in February 2006. Almost three years on, it is timely to take a step back and examine the way that the paper scene has moved on, especially as we are writing our 40th issue of Professional Imagemaker. Paper Chase has been ever-present in the magazine.

Paper making is an ancient art and so we can expect few changes in the underlying, substrate materials. The major changes therefore are in the coating technology. The other changes that have impinged upon us are the increasing quality of the inkjet printers and the expansion of the product ranges of paper offered by each supplier.

Back in Paper Chase 12 we tested the first three sheets of a new material called 'Fibre Base Gloss' which was badged with the Permajet label. By the time we had got to Paper Chase 22 we were testing 30 such 'baryta' papers and there were still some we had not managed to locate samples of! Baryta then, was the big mover since the last summary and it has consistently exhibited best-in-class properties on all the measures applied to it. Baryta coating even found its way onto a canvas substrate with spectacular results.

Testing methodology

This has only changed slightly, except that as quality and colour precision have risen we have needed better and better statistics before we have taken the hyperbole from the dictionary and placed them on the page! It is true to say that we have been able to report something recordbreaking in nearly ever Paper Chase since the last roundup. Thankfully there are very few poor papers around today, the cut-throat market sees off anything below par. The confusion for the consumer is the choice, it is truly bewildering.

One of the changes since 2006 is the availability of colour profiling and its penetration into the enthusiast's end of the market. Once the province of specialists only, many users now have at least one form of colour measuring device and the paper providers themselves have become expert in making profiles for the range of popular printers, on each of their surfaces. The profiles are of more variable quality than the papers themselves and, if the instructions provided are anything to go by, some people have a poor understanding of the profile-making process.

Some are made with too few patches leading to banding, some distort print saturation and many do not handle shadow separation correctly. However, the drift upwards of inkjet quality has ensured that printer-to-printer variations are now smaller than ever, particularly in the wide-format machines.

Some of the supplier-profiles are as good, or superior to, those we have made ourselves, due to a fortuitous match between the test-bed machines of the paper supplier and our own machines. However, in all but a small handful of cases, we have always managed to improve the audit statistics by fine tuning a profile. It depends on how much paper a supplier sends us for review, but we generally test papers in the following sequence:

1. Using the paper provider's profile if available, if not, the standard printer profiles using the closest media match.

2. Using our own bespoke profile, 'as made'.

3. Using our own, bespoke profile after an iterative finetuning process.Within this framework there are variations. For example, the paper supplier's instructions may specify an either/or for the media choice (eg Velvet Fine Art or Watercolour Radiant White). In the case of Hahnemuhle these two options produced radically different results, with Velvet Fine Art being much superior. In the case of specialist proofing papers we sometimes go through as many as four iterations, tweaking the profile, re-auditing the result, then readjusting the profile, before we reach contract proofing standards. Even with contract proofing, the goalposts have been moved. No sooner had we achieved compliance with the 2006 standards than they halved the tolerance on us! To date we have not tweaked our way inside the 2008 specifications. To put this level of compliance into perspective there are differences between the way that the ink is squirted down when using Epson's High Speed 'on' or 'off' settings. There are differences between one side of a 24" sheet and the other and finally you have to ensure that temperature and humidity are within 'normal' bounds. The heat wave of the 2007 summer caused havoc with proofing in some places. These levels of precision are standards that the jobbing photographer can only dream of, and we would urge caution before starting to worry about them! With few exceptions you can create commercially acceptable photographic prints from any paper/printer combination once you have sorted out the settings.

How to pick a paper

How do you decide upon a paper? Inkjet paper is relatively expensive and unless you are minted you can ill-afford to go out and buy a large selection. This leaves two possibilities, to ask the proud owner of a print you admire what they used or to obtain one of the many sample packs that are made for the purpose. If you ask another print-maker ensure that you are not seduced by the qualities of the image. A pretty girl (or hunky male for the ladies) is quite likely to influence your view of a paper surface. I had a proof of one of Trevor Yerbury's images lying around while preparing the last magazine. All male visitors commented upon the image, nobody mentioned an obvious flaw in the colour management that I was trying to sort out! This is how it should be, the image is always the most important feature of a print, otherwise there would be a market for images of Macbeth Charts!

If you choose to sift through a sample set, start by writing, in soft pencil, on the back of every piece of the paper, which surface it is. Nothing is more infuriating than making a masterpiece on an anonymous piece of paper and not knowing how you went about it. Also make notes on the back of the samples and, as far as possible, try to use the same image over and over. If there are only two types of each paper in a sample box you might be better buying two boxes. We have frequently made a profile with piece one then goofed piece two and been left with no idea how a paper performs. With only two pieces you might try the manufacturer's profile for a colour print on one piece and a monochrome on the other.

The situation is analogous to the choosing of a film/developer combination - the sound advice was always to stick with a combination until you understood it rather than flitting around from pillar to post in search of some illusive master-solution. Don't forget that you can arrange to print on one half of a piece of paper and then put the paper back in the printer and do another test - make sure you know which is which! This is vital if you have only one sample of a type in the box.



Updated 27/04/2026 16:44:22 Last Modified: Monday, 27 April 2026