Paper Chase - Innova Digital Fine Art Paper

FibaPrint Warm Tone Gloss

The terminology ‘warm tone’ originally applied to chlorobromide silver papers which were usually laced with cadmium to control the grain size and toning properties. They were typified by Kodak Bromesko, Royal Bromesko, Agfa Portriga and Record Rapid. Most were initially modified to get around the cadmium problem (it was banned) then eventually dropped around the turn of the millennium. Another favourite was Kodak Ektalure which had a highly textured surface, a rich cream/ivory base and a warm tone coating. As late as April 2006 Ektalure was still being lamented on the web forums as ‘the best paper ever’. With a single surface, a single grade and a distinctly low Dmax, it does not stand up to the historical (or should we say hysterical?) hype. To confirm our suspicions we dug some prints out, made in the 80s and ran them under the spectro alongside FibaPrint. To be honest Ektalure was a pretty indifferent, inflexible paper and even though it was jaw-droppingly expensive, your editor never even finished the box and gave it away. During our research for these older papers we came across the reported invention of baryta coatings, which occurred around 1866 and was originally intended to level out the fibres and protect the emulsion coating from the ravages of chemicals in the coarse paper base layer (end of history lesson).

Armed with this dose of history we made monochrome prints onto FibaPrint Warm Tone using the Epson Advanced Black and White driver on the ‘warm’ setting. We repeated the trials discussed in Paul Gallagher’s column in this issue and made the same measurement set. Using a media setting of Premium Semigloss Photo Paper, the ‘light’ tone setting and a resolution of 2880dpi on an Epson 3800, we obtained a tonal range close to that achieved by our very accurate full-colour profile – that is the result was different to that found with the Premium Lustre media as discussed in the Gallagher section. The tone colour itself was very close to that of Kodak Ektalure, although the base tone of FibaPrint Warm Tone is very much brighter. At 2.13, the Dmax was massively higher than Ektalure and higher than the 2.1 and 2.06 we obtained from real prints made onto Agfa Record Rapid.

One interesting thing we noted when looking through the archive silver materials was the level of OBA used in some of them. The passage of time has robbed us of some of the notes and data. However, one pap Silver hailde and WT Gloss er peaked at 104.5% reflectance at 430nm, as high as many inkjet materials. Ilford Multigrade IV did not breach the 100% barrier but was certainly quite peaky at the 440nm part of the spectrum. Other fibre base silver materials were equally active in the UV booth. On that score at least FibaPrint Warm Tone wins hands down, there is absolutely no trace of OBAs.

FibaPrint White Gloss, White Semi Matte and Ultra Smooth Gloss

We put all these papers to test using the tuned profile made originally for the Ultra Smooth Gloss. This is not a tactic we would normally employ but initial trials had suggested that the very high accuracy obtained on the Ultra Smooth would be replicated on the other materials. The data obtained were all quite exceptional and are tabulated (opposite) for completeness – it seems that one profile might do for all.

The only niggle was with the White Semi Matte. This had been cut across the grain – that is, the residual roller marks ran across the short direction of the A3 sheet. This induced some curl in the media and caused it to clatter into the head of the test-bed Epson 3800, an issue noted before and one reason we prefer the cross-backed Permajet Royal variant of the baryta-like papers. We also noted that the Semi Matte needed a longer drying time; the surface was marked by the rubber wheel of the spectrophotometer, not an issue we normally see. We obviously measured the test sample a little too soon.

FibaPrint White Matte

This paper is part of the FibaPrint group but, with a completely matte surface, it has radically different properties. We changed over to Matte Black ink in the Epson 3800 for the test, and used Archival Matte Paper as the media setting, at 2880dpi.

The paper has a smooth matte surface with no texture to speak of. We managed a Dmax of 1.59, good for a matte finish. The base tone is a cool bright white because of the use of OBAs.

The audit print was visually smooth. The blacks were differentiated down to 20 RGB points. There was slight mottling in the Granger Chart, particularly in the deep blues.

The colour audit turned in a very commendable 6.2 ΔELab/2.89 ΔE 2000 overall. The flesh tones were a little desaturated but almost exactly the correct hue, giving an overall flesh tone error of 2.0ΔE 2000. The earth tone suffered from the lack of Dmax, coming in at 4.9ΔE 2000. Although this is twice that obtained with the media’s glossy siblings, it is quite typical of this class of material.

Monochrome
The depth of a black always suffers in a matte paper. The difference, down the tone range, is shown in the graph, with White Matte lagging about 14% behind its companions. The metamerism on the ‘full colour’ grey was low at 1.0 ΔE Lab (D65 to Tungten on 50% grey). The neutrals were mapped to within 1 ΔE Lab point of neutral to give a very clean-looking image.

Advanced Black and White
In keeping with the trend for this issue we also tried a variety of settings for making monochromes with the Advanced Black and White drivers of the Epson 3800. These included ABW on Light, Normal, Dark and Darkest tone settings, along with a full-colour variant using a bespoke profile. The Light setting was the closest to the bespoke profile and was also the most accurate when compared to the original input data (see table). The neutral ‘colour’ values were all within half a point of pure neutral.

Overall the results from the White Matte were impressive for the class of media and very significantly better than all of the matte proofing papers that we have tested. They are on a par with other quality matte media, although exact comparisons with previous testing is not possible because the older data were derived from less modern printers (principally Epson 4000 and 2100 machines). Suffice to say, Matte White is not going to let you down at exhibition-standard printing.

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Photo Quote: If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera - Lewis Hine