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Paper Chase - Permajet Fine Art Range 2016

by Mike McNamee

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.

PORTRAIT RAG 285gsm
This classic from the PermaJet range retains its 100% cotton base and subtle texture while making it marginally lighter at 285gsm. This product is acid-free and meets the highest digital art standards. Certified by an independent UKAS laboratory this material, like many PermaJet products, exceeds the Fine Art Trade Guild's archival standards and is ideal for Art and Photo reproductions. The original media has been used for many years as a standard for comparing printer performance. The surface retains detail superbly. Key statistics from the audit are the very low values for the Macbeth errors and skin tone errors of less than 2.0, the error in skin tone lightness values was zero.

PHOTO ART SILK 290gsm
The popular surface and finish of the Smooth Art Silk has been updated to a 290gsm base offering printer-friendly loading. The unique ink-receiving layer that exhibits the silk/satin sheen once printed on has been developed to give greater colour vibrancy and increased scratch resistance.

Previously we have measured slightly lower gamut volumes for this media but not this time; this returned the highest values of the range, 30% higher than the last data set with the highest Dmax also at 1.78.

MUSEUM HERITAGE 310gsm
"The new Museum Heritage has been developed in co-operation with high-quality image reproduction labs to ensure it delivers the maximum structure where ink can reside and be retained making it the toughest art surface the world has seen to date."

This is a 310gsm natural white art paper with a pH neutral base that is delicately textured. Produced from a mix of cotton and alpha cellulose which gives a soft feel while retaining the rigidity the art printing and framing makers demand. Museum Heritage 310 delivered a good gamut volume of 626,217, the highest of the textured media and a colour error overall of just 3 points.

PermaJet claim that the latest inkjet technology addresses ink transfer issues in previous versions to provide superior ink retention and full archival stability. The moderate level of OBAs will give it a bit of a lift to the tones.

ARTIST WATERCOLOUR 250gsm
The Artist Watercolour 250gsm textured art paper has an off-white base tone and is made from alpha cellulose. The mould-made base material has a highly defined rough surface that delivers incredible fine art prints. The strength of the tooth is more akin to a pastel paper or one that might be used for charcoal work. It is suited to the reproduction of artists' watercolour work or the output of photographic images from which you wish to achieve subtle artistic impressions. It has the second highest colour gamut volume of its group and a Dmax of 1.65, the highest of the group. The highlight end of the range is a little compressed as detail is lost in the structure beyond 246 RGB points. Conversely, the shadow detail is excellent, differentiating all the way down to 20 RGB points.

GALLERY ETCHING 310gsm
The heavy weight, alpha cellulose 310gsm base is reminiscent of a modern-day etchings paper exhibiting a consistent and undulating matt coated surface. Its natural whiteness works in harmony with any artistic or creative photographic image.

The stand-out statistics of the audit are exceptional skin tone accuracy and a Macbeth set under 3.0 ?Eoo.

Testing with Canon Pixma Pro 10s
By coincidence we had the opportunity to test some PermaJet papers on the Canon Pixma Pro 10s. This is a 10-ink machine using Lucia inks including three blacks/ greys for improved monochrome renderings. It also sports a Chroma Optimizer to enhance glossiness and expand the gamut. A noteworthy feature of the testing was the disastrous installation onto the Mac operating system (it wasn't us guvnor the client did it!). It is vital with some consumer printers to install the driver software first and THEN plug the printer USB in. Not doing so causes the Mac to install the Gutenprint driver which is an open-source driver which disables the colour management. This is evident by the greyed out dialogue radio boxes in the driver that you ordinarily expect to see. It's a long story but we were unable to resolve the issue on our first visit but we did audit the results we had obtained using the Gutenprint driver and at least left the client with the ability to run work out. Interestingly, the output was quite good once a suitable media setting had been matched to the PermaJet Art Silk (we settled on Canon1/2 Pro paper Glossy Gold). The result was an average error of just 3.3?Eoo which is good for this class of material without bespoke profiling. We were unable to bespoke profile because we could not disable the printer colour management in the interfaces we were being offered. For anybody who is suffering from this issue, the solution is to delete the printer in the Mac system, unplug the USB, install the latest drivers and then plug the printer back in.

We are minded to come back to this issue and get the new Prograf Pro 1000 printer in for a review and really get to grips with things - watch this space!

Overall
Overall then the rationalisations and refinements of the Permajet Fine Art range are a useful addition to the media landscape. They perform every bit as well as their predecessors and in some cases better. PermaJet have a test pack available at £9.96 ex VAT, one for Smooth Fine Art, one for Textured Fine Art. The pack also includes a swatch set. Go try it for yourselves, you won't be disappointed!



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