Musings on Photography

There was a time (eight years ago, now) when I spent several years photographing extensively on the coast. It’s not much of a surprise that nearly all of those photos featured water in some way; it’s the primary force that shapes the landscape there.

And I learned a whole lot about printing as I labored in my darkroom, printing those images. I was constantly searching and working to get the prints ‘just right’ - that elusive state where the water was portrayed in the print in just the right way, so that your brain read the print as ‘wet’. One of my friends described this effect as ‘You get the impression that if you touch the surface of the print, your finger will come away wet’. There’s a certain elusive combination of tone and contrast that goes into getting your brain to accept that illusion, and I spent a great deal of time (and used up staggering quantities of paper) getting that effect in the prints.

When I switched to digital printing, this was one of the effects that I found very, very hard to reproduce on glossy/semi-glossy papers. No matter what I did, I couldn’t hit that magic sweet spot in the same way I could in a gelatin silver print. I could get it to happen, but it was always more muted than it was with a silver print. And when I switched to matte papers, I found it was just impossible to recreate this effect. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get my brain to read the print as ‘wet’. Not a chance. It’s got something to do with the surface, I guess. (Interestingly, I find it’s really hard to get the effect on the screen.)

This past week, as part of an ongoing project, I’m going back and reprinting many of those coastal images. For this particular set, I’m working through a roll of Harman Gloss FB Al, the Harman paper that duplicates the look of air-dried F surface gelatin silver paper, only more so. It is, if I may wax enthusiastic, absolutely lovely stuff.

And best of all, it seems to be great at this ‘wet’ illusion. I’ve got a print of the above image, and I swear that when you pick the print up, you expect to see the movement cause ripples in the water. And that rock, which was the direct cause of half a dozen head sized dents in my darkroom walls, is so darn wet I just can’t believe it. I’m not claiming this is the world’s best photograph, but I can tell you that in the darkroom this thing was a definite headbanger, and printing digitally on the Harman paper and my Z3100, it’s a relative breeze.

There was a time when I felt that air-dried glossy gelatin silver was the bee’s knees. Then there was a time where I felt that smooth surface matte paper inkjet prints were the cat’s pajamas. And now, it seems, I can pick and choose what paper to print on. And I’m finding that it’s largely a matter of horses for courses. This is bad news from a ‘how many papers must I keep on hand’ point of view. But it’s excellent news from a print quality point of view.

I wasted much of this morning, foolishly pursuing trying to profile sheets of paper in the z3100, all to no avail. First I tried Epson Premium Luster, whacking off sheets from a 44″ roll I have left over. I can get it to calibrate fine. It barfs when trying to scan the printed profile test pattern, complaining about “paper type/LED”.

So, thinking it as a major printer problem, I reprofiled another paper, this one a roll. Worked a treat.

I tried just having the printer scan the Epson Premium Luster prints. No dice, same error.

Finally, just to find out if it’s a problem with the Epson paper or a sheet problem, I tried to have the printer scan the test print I generated on the other paper. No dice, same error.

This will have to wait until I have the fortitude to call up HP and do battle with phone support. With my frustration level already high, it will have to wait.

This is a disappointment, because I’d been hoping to be able to ask people to send me, say, three or four a3 sized sheets of various papers, and I’d profile them and blog about the results. Sheesh, if I can’t profile using sheets I guess that won’t work. Even putting sheets in and telling the printer it’s a roll won’t work because it does different stuff to de-skew the paper.

Rats.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr. UPS delivered my most recent order of paper. To my delight, the delivery did, indeed, include my 17″x50′ roll of Harman Gloss FB AL and my 17″x40′ roll of Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk.

So I set myself down, and I popped those rolls into the Z3100, and I cranked out profiles for both of them. Since I know that all of you have been waiting for my report on these two papers with bated breath, I will get right down to the brass tacks, the nitty gritty, and the bottom line. (pet peeve alert: note that you are all waiting with ‘bated’ breath, indicating that you have been holding your breath and not breathing, as opposed to ‘baited’ breath, a concept which is too disgusting to be discussed here. ‘Nuff said.)

First up: Harman Gloss FB AL. I ordered this paper both because of and in spite of Kjell Harald’s comments on it (see this post, this post, and this post). My first impression, which matches that of Kjell, was that the smell really triggered a tidal wave of emotions and memories. I’m serious. It smells exactly like Ilford Galerie fiber based gelatin silver paper when it comes out of the box. Weird.

Ok, so anyway, somehow I expected the paper to be a little thicker than it is. That is, my initial assessment was that this paper is not as thick as, say, Crane Museo Portfolio, on which I’ve been printing. But when I actually measured, they’re almost exactly the same. The Harman seems to be about the same weight as the Crane Museo Portfolio, but the Harman paper is far more flexible. That’s too bad, because I rather like the stiffness of the Crane paper, which feels very substantial in your hand and gives off a vibe of being a Very Permanent Object. I’m guessing (but don’t have enough experience to know for sure) that kinking of big prints on Harman Gloss FB AL is going to be a bit of an issue, although I don’t expect it to be as bad as the problems I had with Epson Premium Luster and Premium Semimatte.

The surface texture of the Harman Gloss FB AL paper is just a little glossy for my tastes. It’s not glossy like the old Ilfochrome glossy stuff that was based on voided polyester, or the Fuji Supergloss stuff (similarly on voided polyester), or ferrotyped glossy Kodabromide F surface. Those papers were Glossy with a capital G. This is more a matter of glossy with a lower case g, and a slight stippling of the surface. It’s very much like the surface of air dried glossy gelatin silver papers of yesteryear, just as advertised. I was hoping for a gloss surface that was more like the old Agfa Portriga Rapid - sort of a smooth surface, not quite so matte as to be semi-matte but also not quite so glossy as to be really glossy. And it’s just a smidgen more glossy than that target of mine.

On to the good news. I fired up the colorsync tool immediately I had the profile for Harman Gloss FB AL done, and compared the gamut to that of Crane Museo Portfolio. What I saw nearly made me fall out of my chair. Harman Gloss FB AL is the wireframe, Crane Museo Portfolio is the solid. (the Harman profile was generated with gloss optimizer ON, which makes a pretty significant difference).

The win that CMP is making in the ligheter yellows and greens is very small, perhaps not even visible. But the big addition of volume for Harman Gloss FB AL at the bottom of the luminance axis (the vertical one) is monumentally huge. I looked at the difference, and the alarm bells in my head started ringing. Comparing the low tone gamut of this stuff to the previous ‘looks like glossy’ paper I used, which was HP Professional Satin Photo Paper, the Harman blows the doors off the HP paper. And I liked the Hp paper, and wished that it was offered in widths other than 24″ and 44″. Let me tell you, if you’re using the HP Professional Satin Photo paper, both the Harman Gloss and the Ilford Gold Fiber Silk papers are going to change that pretty darn quick. In fact, the gamut of this stuff is larger than every HP paper I have a profile for. Every. Single. One.

This stuff is just magic in roll form. I’m stunned.

On to the Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk. For reasons I’m not quite sure of, I had relatively modest expectations for this paper, and bought a roll because, well, the stuff is damn inexpensive. So I was stunned when I profiled it and compared it to the Harman:

When I looked at these two charts, I thought “Well, now, isn’t THAT interesting?” because for all intents and purposes, the gamut of the two papers is the same. Oh, the Ilford paper wins by a scootch in the reds, there, and the Harman paper wins in the rest of the gamut, but for all intents and purposes, both of these papers do about the same as the other (and whip the stuffing out of all the other papers I’ve tried).

On to an assessment of the physical properties of the Ilford Gold Fibre Silk.

On weight, the Harman and Ilford papers are identical as far as I can tell. I mean, I didn’t weigh them to the gram, but they have the same heft. And they’re the same thickness, as well. Stiffness, they’re the same. In the hand, the Ilford paper feels just a little nicer - more papery, and less plasticky. Both feel pretty nice, actually, but my preference is the Ilford. The Ilford has the same smell as the Harman paper, but not quite as intensely.

The Ilford paper is a little less glossy than the Harman paper, but has a more pronounced luster texture to the surface. Half the time I think I like the Ilford paper better, and half the time I think I like the Harman better. If I could get the reduced gloss of the Ilford paper with the smoother surface texture of the Harman paper, I’d be happier than the Stellar’s Jay that just won the territorial battle for the stump outside my workroom window, and let me tell you, judging from the racket he’s making (”I won, I won! This stump is MINE! Attention Lady Birds - I am now taking applicants! I am very SEXY!) that’s one happy Stellar’s Jay.

Both papers scuff easily. One of the two (Ilford? I can’t remember) actually included cotton gloves in the box with the paper, which is amusing because shipping print handling gloves to my work space is like shipping coals to Newcastle. (I got tired of hunting around to find gloves when I wanted them and at one point just ordered up a truckload, so they’re laying about with the approximate density of drunken university students on Fraternity Row on Saturday night.) Drying overnight seemed to help but they still scuff pretty easily.

Finally, the base color - the Ilford paper is a warmer, creamier white. It’s not overtly yellow, it’s just not the OBA whiter than white that other papers have. The Harman paper, on the other hand, is exceedingly bright white - perhaps even a bit cool. I’ve read that the Ilford paper is OBA free but can’t find that reference any longer. If the Harman paper is OBA free, I’ll eat my mechanical pencil. It’s pretty bright.

And now, the final difference - price. I bought the paper from www.shadesofpaper.com (my first order with them, by the way, and I was pleased with the service). The Harman cost $143 for a 17″ x 50′ roll. The Ilford cost $88 for a 17″x40′ roll. For comparison, the Crane Museo Portfolio cost $136 for a 17″x50′ roll.

That difference is cost is substantial, especially when the two products are so similar. If I needed that bright white base, or wanted exactly the surface texture of the Harman paper, I’d pay the extra price. But for now I’m guessing there’s going to be a fair bit of the Ilford paper going through my HP Z3100.

No, not the daily paper as in the Wall Street Journal. That sort of paper is read online, thanks, where I don’t end up with lots of trash afterwards.

I’m talking about a search for a paper which can be my ‘daily user’ printing paper - the cheaper stuff I make work prints on so that I work through the process of editing and adjusting the photos without burning up huge quantities of cash on expensive stuff like Crane Museo Portfolio. I mean, Crane Museo Portfolio is lovely stuff, and all other things being equal, I’d print on nothing else (until I find something better).

But all things are most definitely NOT equal. In particular, a 17″ x 50′ roll of CMP costs (the lowest price I’ve been able to find) $130. In contrast, my previous daily paper (Epson Enhance Matte) cost $52 for a 17″ x 100′ roll. Yes, that’s right, CMP costs a factor of five more. And when you’re planning on making a lot of prints, a little economy goes a long way but a big economy puts you outside the gravitational influence of the Sun.

So the search is on for some daily paper. One option would be to use Epson Enhanced Matte, because it’s cheap.

One candidate I’ve found so far is InkjetArt’s Premium Duobrite Matte. It’s priced on a par with Epson Enhanced Matte - $52 for a 17″x100′ roll. Shipping is cheap. Sounds good, so I ordered a roll.

At first blush, the stuff looks and feels nice. The base color is colder than EEM, which is not my preference. But it’s ok, and it comes in whacking big rolls on a 3″ core, which means that it doesn’t have as much curl as some other inexpensive papers that come on 2″ cores.

So I profiled it. Here’s one comparison - InkJetArt Premium Duobrite Matte (solid) and Crane Museo Portfolio (wireframe):

Well, it’s nice to know that paying five times more gets you substantially better performance. InkJetArt Duobrite Matte scraps out some very minimal wins in the lighter tones, and gives up HUGE losses in the lower values.

Now, to my eye, it looks to me as if the differences here should make a profound difference in prints. What I really need, I guess, is a way to not just compare the two profiles (which might reveal differences between the gamut) but also a way to see how the differences in gamuts alter the rendered image. Such software exists. I suppose this represents another divergence from making photographs as I scurry down the hallways of color theory and software tools. Sigh.

Now, just for yucks, I compared InkJetArt Duobrite Matte to Epson Ultrasmooth Fine Art:

I haven’t shown you the reverse side of the graphic, because the two gamuts are identical, or at least so nearly identical that it makes no difference.

And now for the instructive comparison, InkJetArt Duobrite Matte(wireframe) and Epson Enhanced Matte (solid):

Looking at yesterday’s post, we saw that Epson Enhanced Matte has a gamut the same general shape as Epson Ultrasmooth, but just a smidgen larger.

And yet on the z3100, Ultrasmooth and InkjetArt Premium Duobrite Matte have almost exactly the same gamut, and yet InkjetArt Premium Duobrite Matte and Epson Enhanced Matte are pretty radically different, with EEM winning substantially in the dark tones and giving up lots of ground on the high tones.

There is no transitivity here. The fact that paper A outperforms paper B on one printer tells you next to nothing about the relative performance of A and B on a different printer.

How annoying. I guess there ain’t nothing easy.

Because I’m switching to the HP Z3100 for all my printing, I’ve been engaged in that soul-sucking pastime, the Paper Chase. But, before I start off trying lots of papers at random, I’m trying to a) lay down a methodology so that I can be both thorough and consistent, b) make part of that methodology be to tie the result on the new printer back to the results on the old printer, and c) be directed about what papers I try.

And the key, I think, is to exploit the information that’s collected when a paper is profiled. I have both prints and profiles for several papers on the Epson 9600, and those prints and the profiles for the papers they’re on represent a lot of data. The profiles, for instance, can tell you a lot about the gamut of a printer/paper combination.

Here’s just such a comparison - comparing Epson Enhanced Matte and Epson Ultrasmooth, both on the Epson 9600.

The wireframe represents the gamut of Epson Enhanced Matte on the 9600, the solid is the gamut of Epson Ultrasmooth. The thing to note is that Ultrasmooth Fine Art has a smaller gamut everywhere except for the dark blues. Everywhere the difference in gamut is pretty small. This pretty much matches my experience using these two papers fairly extensively on the Epson 9600. The two papers have differ in base color and surface texture and weight, but images print similarly on both papers once the base color difference is discounted.

Now let’s look at one paper on the two different printers. For convenience, I’ll use Epson Ultrasmooth Fine Art.

Wireframe is the 9600, solid is the z3100. The 9600 has a modestly larger gamut in the darker yellowy-greens and oranges. The z3100 has big wins in the greens and blues. Note that the differences on the same paper but between the two printers are large relative to the differences between Epson Enhanced Matte and Epson Ultrasmooth both on the 9600. The thing I notice is that the 9600 wins pretty much all around right down near the maximum black. Again, all this pretty much matches my impressions comparing prints on Ultrasmooth on both printers.

One thing I’ve noticed is that Ultrasmooth and Epson Enhanced Matte seem to have been tweaked to work well on the Epson printers - no surprise, I suppose. But both papers seem to perform better on the 9600 than they do on the z3100.

But look at this comparison - Crane Museo Max on the z3100 (wireframe) against Epson Ultrasmooth on the z3100 (solid)

Crane Museo Max gives a much larger gamut on the 3100 than Ultrasmooth Fine Art. As a general thing, this matches my observations from comparison prints. So I’m feeling pretty good about being able to look at the comparison of these profiles and make inferences about what the papers will be like when compared.

Now, the tool I’m using to generate these graphics is the colorsync tool on the Mac. It has the big advantage that I can ‘grab’ the graphic and rotate it around to my hearts content. This interactivity means that making comparisons is a lot easier than it seems looking at these static graphics. One particularly useful trick is to rotate the plot so that you’re looking edge on at a particular area you want to examine - this lets you see the ‘thickness’ of the difference between the two gamuts and so get some idea of whether this is a minor difference or a major one.