LANA edition d' Art Digital Paper

FROM AN AD-MANS POINT OF VIEW some digital papers start with a distinct advantage. This one is no exception; a prospective buyer should just love the cache of having an image made on stuff named like this! The Lana mill, near Strasbourg, was founded in 1590 and has occupied its present site from 1686. It also supplies papers to Winsor & Newton and luxury goods manufacturers. Lana has been selling a coated paper, Concorde Rag, through Legion in the US for the past six years but the new papers mark a concerted push into the UK digital fine art market. Lana éditions d'Art Digital Paper is a pH neutral, 100 per cent cotton, mould-made paper which is available in weights of 256 and 356gsm. Lana has worked closely with its UK partners to enhance the paper, reformulating the coating several times to ensure maximum image quality, particularly in printing black. Lana emphasises that its paper contains no optical brightening agents (OBAs), arguing that these can quickly discolour and produce a colour shift. Lana also makes the intriguing claim that the low fibre content of its paper means that it generates less dust than rival papers. We obtained our review materials from UK importer Alumaframe (01787 474300).

We were provided with four inkjet papers.T here are two weights, a 256gsm and a very weighty 356gsm. Both these weights comply with Fine Art Trade Guild standards. There are two surfaces, smooth and watercolour. The base paper is 100% cotton Rag, acid free, mould made with no brightening agents. The reflectivity figures are surprisingly high and the base tone colours are all a rich, warm cream. The Smooth Natural white is the deepest cream; the other three are very similar to each other.

We tested the 356 Smooth White in an Epson 7600 equipped with Photo Black inks and an Epson 2100 equipped with Matte Black ink. This is a meaty and impressive paper, over ½ a millimetre thick. It ran through both printers OK, the 7600 as a roll feed and the 2100 as a board feed from the back of the printer.

Paper Chase

Colour Values of Printed Samples

Epson 7600 Bespoke profiled for PhotoBlack*

Like other fine art papers there is a relative degrading of the black density compared to a gloss or lustre paper. The deepest black using Photo Black ink was 26% (brightness value). Across the gamut, the lightness error predominates in the darker tones.The black density and tone contrast is similar to Somerset Velvet Enhanced; both are lighter in tone than Permajet Classic Portrait and Hahnemühle Photo Rag.The average error in the Macbeth Chart was 8.9 Lab.The De2000 error was 6.40.These data are about twice that which would be expected from satin or gloss materials or non-art matte materials. Within the average error of 6.40, the contribution from the lightness channel was 5.5, twice that of the hue and saturation.

The skin tones had a mean error of 3.70, lower than the average for the gamut because the lighter tone errors were less affected by the lack of density. The flesh tones were the correct saturation but the hue was rotated a few degrees towards yellow. This tone bias was probably affected by the warm cream colour of the base material.

The greys were warm, in keeping with the base colour and they looked neutral to the eye.

*The profile was build using No Colour Adjustment, 1440dpi, Smooth Fine Art as the media but the thickness was manually adjusted for the true value of 60 Microns. The samples were run with perceptual rendering intent and Black Point Compensation was enabled.

Epson 2100 Matte Black Ink

Using the Matte ink (and the same profile as the 7600) dropped the deepest black down to 18.5% and reduced the errors across the gamut. It has little influence on the errors in the flesh tones (because they are light) but improved the errors in the earth tones (which contain lots of dark tones). The error in the lightness channel across the gamut was about halved compared to the PhotoBlack result.

Subjective Viewing If you are sensitive to the tactile and visual properties of a paper you will love this one! It really does have a quality feel and rich warmness to it. The claims for improving the black depth are not substantiated, it may be better than an uncoated art paper but it did not get to the depths obtained with either Hahnemühle Photo Rag or Permajet Portrait Classic. However, the eye readily accepts this slight lack of depth, more so that a colour cast for example. After profiling the colour parameters were excellent, with the bulk of the error component being in the lightness channel.

Paper Chase

Lana 356 Epson 2100 MtBlk ink

The spectral traces from the Lana papers
show no sign whatever of OBA activity.The depressed
response in the 390nm to 549nm part of the
spectrum is responsible for the warm cream tone of
the paper so loved by the art fraternity.

Lab Ploty Generally the flesh tones are rotated
slightly towards more yellow with only a slight fall in
saturation. All of the desaturated flesh tones (ie with
very little colour) are held in the warm part of the Lab
plot which is why they are pleasing to the eye.
RIGHT: The all important grey response of the paper
printer combination.The grey linearity falls right into
the lowest tone at 18% brightness.The grey colour
bias plot shows most of the grey scale in the warm
cream part of the Lab plot, probably one of the
reasons why the flesh tones are so pleasing.

Colour

Although the Lana surfaces are
relatively "soft" they hold detail well.
Under close inspection there are no
residual lines left from the ink jet
nozzles but bleed is well under control.
The flat areas of grey are particularly
even.

Giclée Coating with ClearShield

ALUMAFRAME also import the liquid uv coating material called ClearShield. This is a water-based emulsion, which is milky in the bottle, but dries clear. It may be applied by spray, silkscreen, brush or roller and is self levelling. It is available in Gloss, Semi Matte and Matte Finishes. The surface of fine art and canvas materials can be delicate. This is not a problem if an image is to be framed but the protective nature of the coating is welcome in a lot of uses. Tests at the Wilhelm Institute also show that uv protective coating can prolong the fade resistance by as much as twice. The manufacturers of ClearShield are a little cautious and claim between nothing and 100% improvement.

One of the interesting changes was the cutting out of uv from the spectral power distribution (SPD) curve. The coating has uv protective properties and these are demonstrated by the slicing off of the uv "hump" in the SPD. Presumably this is why the coating also protects the underlying pigments against damage by ultra violet light.

For this initial examination we looked at the effect of the ClearShield on the colour values. This was quite marked. The black density was improved from 26.2 to 13.8% brightness value, a significant change. All the gamut errors were reduced but the error across the gamut in the lightness channel was dropped more than threefold (up to 5 in other areas, see the table). The contrast of the print was improved (see graph) and the colours were more saturated. There was no detectable change in the colour.

The increase in toughness was considerable. It was possible to drag your fingernail across the protected print without leaving a mark. This is not something that can be done on a matte art paper normally. Wetting the fingers and dragging them over the print also had no detectable effect.

We also applied the coating to a few canvas prints. The instructions contain a warning about testing your subject substrate and ink before committing to the full job. This is sound advice. We applied the coating to an old Polaroid canvas and promptly wiped the print back to white canvas. The effect on an Ilford Studio canvas print was spectacular, the improvement in the richness of the print was quite startling.

Application of the coating requires a little practice. It is dependant on dilution and temperature.We placed our test prints on an aluminium domestic tray in order to keep the whole set-up cool and this seemed to work OK. Naturally a good brush is a pre-requisite and we used a 1 ½" sable hair artists brush, making sure that there were no loose hairs to shed onto to the print.

ClearShield costs around £25 per litre or £85 for a 3.8l can. It is sold without any warrantee as to its efficacy, there are too many variables!

Contact Alumaframe Systems on 01787 474 300.

Grayscale Effect of clearsheild

Above Left: The uncoated paper (in this case Epson Enhanced Matte) contains an OBA, which produces a lift in the reflectivity at the 400nm point [A]. In the coated sample this has been depressed and it is assumed that the uv is being rejected by the Clearshield so that no fluorescence can occur, normally the reason for the lift in reflectivity. Claims for increased uv resistance thus seem well founded.

Above Right The straightening of the response curve and the increase of its slope point to the reason for the increased contrast and depth of black in the ClearShield coated product. Across right, the improvement is even greater in Epson Matte paper in which the black is even deeper after coating. Values such as this are normally more typical of gloss and lustre papers.

APPLICATION OF CLEARSHIELD

Paper Chase

As shown on the left, ClearShield does not suit every combination of inks and paper. Although the Epson Ultrachrome inks are fine on Ilford Studio Canvas they washed off when used with an old Polaroid canvas substrate. Testing is the only way to find out if your chosen combination is compatible. As shown on the right, a cool tray helps to suppress the drying while you "brush out" the varnish. We diluted ours with distilled water by about 20% (water to Clearshield). Coverage is about 18sq metres per litre. Drying time (touch and recoating) varies between 15min at 80 ° F to 2 Hr at 50° F.Total curing time is 1hr at 80°F and 8hr at 50°F.Matte and semi gloss varnishes dry faster than these gloss figures. The varnish is water soluble and practically odourless so there are not real problems in use, rinsing your expensive sable-hair brush is all that is required. The image is a proof from Dave Newman’s cover shot for the next issue.

The best of both worlds! Tom
Lee's low-key portrait showed
spectacular improvement in the depth
of colour on this canvas substrate and
the protection afforded by ClearShield
enables it to be stretched and framed
up without the use of glass.

The SWPP 2008 Convention was an outstanding success,
we have 192 days to get ready for the 2009 convention - which starts on January 14, 2009

Photo Quote: All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this - as in other ways - they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it. - John Berger