Printing the Image - Paper Testing
It’s always good to have a reason to print. It shouldn’t be that way, but life is what it is and things, like printing images, always seem to get pushed aside in the rush of life. Having a “reason” to print raises the priority of printing on the to-do list and, sometimes, it actually happens.
The reason we made it a priority this time was two-fold. The immediate reason was to decide upon a photo paper for a larger project we’re both going to be doing. Given my stock of Red River paper is starting to run low (not really, but . . . ), we decided to consider doing the print project on Hahnemühle paper. It’s readily available around here and when Ann wanted to do some larger printing, it was what we wound up buying to print with. Given we’ve been impressed with one of their glossy papers and one of their matte papers, we figured it would be worth checking out their other options. I had a couple of sample packs (one set for each broad type), so that gave us an opportunity to compare the variety of papers they had to offer.
We picked a color image and a black and white image to test on papers, given some papers vary greatly in how they reproduce one or the other (other papers consistently render each type of images well). The sample packs have two of each sheet of paper type, so that would allow us to test both images on each paper. Ultimately, we decided not to try to print on each type of paper. First off, that would have meant that Ann would have to do custom soft-proof adjustments for each paper type so the images would look similar (you can never get print images to be exactly what you see on a screen, and the differences between what the screen shows and what gets printed varies with each paper so . . . it becomes a lot of work to get “close”). With about 16 different paper types, that would have been a ludicrous (though thorough) exercise. Second, a lot of the options were easily eliminated. Really, there is no way that Ann was going choose to print on near-see-through rice paper. Similarly, several of the papers were an off-white to almost ivory color that were easy to reject out of hand. Other papers had rough textures that were unlikely to hold much detail an image.
In the end we boiled the pool down to a choice of 3 different glossy papers and only one matte paper. We again whittled it down to two. Surprisingly, neither of the papers (glossy or matte) were the ones we had previously printed on, even though they had impressed us enough to examine the range of possible Hahnemüle papers. Interesting.
The color image we decided to use was one of Ann’s older image from Bryce Creek. Not only did it give us a range of colors, and a particularly difficult yellow to reproduce well, it was an image that would let us see how well the paper rendered a variety of water textures that are in the image.
Unfortunately, while the print on the glossy paper turned out superb, there was a serious issue with the matte paper, where much of the image turned out blurry. My guess was that we had set the quality to “best,” which meant more ink was used to create the image and it looked like doing that made the paper swell (one of the drawbacks to matte paper is that it absorbs the ink more than glossy papers). It was almost like taking your glasses off. We decided to move on to the black and white image.
This time we started with the matte paper and changed the quality setting to normal, which I guessed meant less ink would be jetted onto the paper. It worked well, with the image coming out very sharp and tonally rich for a matte paper. We switched back to “best” quality for the glossy paper and it also turned out superb. Both of the prints of White Pocket in southern Utah turned out lovely and rendered the different lighting conditions in the foreground, mid ground and distance well, not to mention the lovely texture of the bushes and weeds in the foreground.
Comparing the two papers, Ann and I decided we didn’t need to get another matte sample pack to see how the color image would render on the matte paper of choice. The rendering quality of the glossy paper was plainly superior, and the surface was a subtle gloss, so reflections are not too bad. Once we decide on the paper size we want to print on, if we decide not to use what we have on stock (we have a nice stash of 11x14 Red River Paolo Douro Soft Gloss Rag), we’ll be going with the Hahnemühle Fine Art Pearl.
I guess I never got around to the second reason we fired up the printer today. Ann and I are doing a workshop this fall with Joe Cornish and Tim Malpas in the Lake District (we signed up almost a year ago). More detailed information about the workshop is starting to come out and one of the things they mentioned is that, given that England is England and England is synonymous with rain, participants might want to bring 5 or 6 photographs in print form for a critique session or two if things get particularly nasty for a few hours on a day or two. So that’s where these images came from - they’re a couple of images from the ones Ann has selected to print.
Ann’s approach to the portfolio of images was to select three color and three black and white images that reflect the range of things she likes to photograph and that represents the way she sees things. She asked for a lot of input about which images to consider, and then to whittle them down. It’s been a pleasure being able to closely examine her work, and the images span a very broad period of time. My approach to the portfolio images was somewhat different. I told myself that I wanted to use only images from the past year, in part to show where I’m at now work-wise (which pales in comparison to the 2018 work). I even excluded from consideration images from last year’s road trip with Len. I also opted not to mix black and white images with color, despite having done a lot of black and white work this year. I decided to use only color images. However, I too wanted to show the diversity of subjects in the natural environment I examine with the camera - it is, of course, a landscape photography workshop. Ann also helped me choose among the images I’d selected to consider to end with a solid half-dozen.
When we get around to printing those images, you’ll be getting another printing the image blog post. For now, scroll back up and enjoy two of Ann’s lovely images.