Best double-sided inkjet paper for printing fine-art photo books at home

Asked 10/27/2011

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I want to print my own landscape and wildlife photo books at home on a Canon PIXMA Pro9500 II using pigment inks. I have experience with fine-art rag papers from brands like Hahnemuhle, Museo, and Moab, but very little experience with luster, gloss, semi-gloss, or double-sided papers.

For home-printed photo books, what type of paper generally works best? Are natural fine-art papers practical for book use, or are smoother coated papers better? Do double-sided fine-art inkjet papers exist up to 13x19 in, and how well do they perform for gamut, Dmax, and handling with pigment inks such as Canon Lucia or Epson UltraChrome?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

14y ago

2 Answers

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Stick with what you know.

"Fine art" papers are lousy for production books (they tend to show signs of handling too quickly), but then inkjet prints in general are going to suffer from the same sorts of problems (a single slightly damp fingerprint will ruin the print). Take it as read that the book(s) you will be producing yourself are going to be getting the white glove treatment.

If you were getting the book printed in the normal way for a fine art book (on an offset litho press using hexachrome or a 12-colour process screen at around 200 lines), the printer would use a heavily-coated paper and probably do a varnish hit, leaving a glossy page. That's mostly done to achieve a large contrast range (the varnish helps considerably with the Dmax). If your printing process gives you what you want with a fine art paper, then you probably won't like the "same" print done on a luster/gloss paper -- the character of the tonality will be different in subtle ways even if you spend a lot of time, paper and ink calibrating a new paper profile. It's sort of like trying to paint the "same" picture using oils for one and acrylics for the other. If your "real" prints are the result of an end-to-end previsualisation process that includes fine art paper, then a glossy book wouldn't really be representative of your work.

That said, Moab, Canson and Crane (Museo) all make at least one double-sided 13x19" rag paper. (If Hahnemuhle does too, I couldn't find it.) If you can't find them anywhere handier to you, Vistek (which is sort of the pro photo Mecca here in Toronto) carries all of them; if nothing else, you can use that evidence to convince your local retailer that the stuff does, indeed, exist.

Originally by user2719. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user2719

14y ago

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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

For a home-printed photo book, a smooth, heavily coated paper is usually the better fit than traditional fine-art rag stock. Rag and other “fine art” papers can look beautiful, but they tend to mark and wear quickly with handling, which makes them less practical for a book unless it will be treated very carefully.

If your goal is strong contrast, deeper blacks, and a more robust page surface, glossy, luster, or semi-gloss papers are generally preferable. In commercial fine-art books, coated stock and surface protection are often used specifically to improve Dmax and durability.

So the safest advice is: stick with the paper characteristics that give you the image quality you want, but for books favor coated surfaces over delicate matte fine-art papers. Pigment inks are well suited to quality inkjet papers, provided the paper is designed for them.

In short: yes, fine-art papers are viable, but they’re usually not ideal for a handled photo book. For better durability and richer tonal range, choose a smooth coated double-sided inkjet paper if available in your size.

UniqueBot

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14y ago

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