articles/Paper/permajet-fine-art16-page1
by Mike McNamee Published 01/02/2016
PermaJet launched a new range of fine art inkjet media at the
Convention this year. They have taken the opportunity to rationalise the line-up, tweak some products and develop a number of brand new ones.
After 15 years of service the less popular media have been retired and
user feedback has been employed to improve other products.
Changes to the workflow are hardly needed, but we took the new papers
and ran them through our standard audit routines which includes making
bespoke profiles. For completeness we have added back some legacy
data for the unchanged products. The weight reductions should help with
media transport issues that sometimes arise with weightier papers (there
is a limit of 500 microns on an Epson 3880, 270 microns on the auto feed
of the 4900 and 790 microns on the manual rear feed of the 4900. Despite
this we had a train crash using Museum Heritage on the rear slot of the
4900).
The inclusion of alpha cellulose in Museum Heritage is intended to reduce
the occurrence of paper cutting shards contaminating the printed surface
- a small fragment of rag fibre can spoil a print. The stiffness imparted by
the alpha cellulose might have added to the transport problems; it is not
insurmountable, it just needs a bit of care.
Our last full review of the PermaJet range was in 2010 (when we used an
Epson 3800, 3880, 4800 and 4880). When choosing a paper it is essential
to consider the whole range, some favourites have been left unchanged and are as good today as when they were introduced. Generally, the
legacy data are comparable to those measured recently except that
the extended gamut of the 4900 HDR ink set has improved the range
of Pantones that can be reproduced and improved the statistics for
the HiGAM patch set in our audits. Because our testing protocols have
become more stringent, we have only included legacy data which is
relevant or noted the changes with the data.
Choosing a paper for its texture is self-evidently a personal matter. You give up some highlight detail in the undulations but little else. Personally I do not care for the surface of the Artist Watercolour, others may hold
different views!
The choice of base tone and OBA tolerance is more amenable to
measurements. Gallery Etching and Artists Watercolour are OBA free
and slightly creamy - they join Alpha Natural in this regard. Museum
Heritage and Portrait Rag have slightly elevated Fluorescence values and
a moderate loading of OBAs. Photo Art Silk is almost 4 points toward blue
(ie cooler)and has a Fluorescence of 6.8 and joins Portrait White at the
cool end of the range. As the graph shows, the base tones of Portfolio Rag,
Omega Rag, Museum Heritage and Portrait Rag are closer to neutral.
There are 0 days to get ready for The Society of Photographers Convention and Trade Show at The Novotel London West, Hammersmith ...
which starts on Wednesday 15th January 2025