Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Michael J. Kravit" 
<kravit@b...> wrote:
>   Rex Wrote:
>   >Self-promotion now coming:  the Crane digital art sheets (Museo, 
>   >ESFA, ETFA) do NOT contain any OBA and are in fact the whitest 
that a 
>   >100% cotton sheet can be.  As a very large purchaser of cotton 
fiber 
>   >(think of all the currency paper), Crane specifies the cleanest 
>   >cotton fiber from all our suppliers, and has a very rigorous 
>   >inspection system for all incoming raw materials.
> 
>   From what I can tell, the biggest problem with Epson Smooth Fine 
art is the mottling and uneveness I get with MIS Inks, although the 
Piezo inks looked very nice. The second thing is that the sheet 
actually has a green tint to it when compared to other papers. 
Overall a nice sheet.
>   MIke

Ok, in comparing Museo or SFA to Eclipse, EAM, i understand what you 
appear to see as a yellow-green tint.  However, this is more of an 
optical illusion, as what you are really seeing is the whiteness of 
the other sheet being more blue-white.  Brightness is not the same as 
whiteness in paper tech talk.  Whiteness is measured on the "L" scale 
of LAB, whereas brightness is a measure of reflectivity (how much 
light is reflected off the paper).  here below are the brightness and 
L whiteness measurements we did a year ago (before wm. turner, 
eclipse, LPM hit the market--i'll try to get these measured here as 
well.)  NB: these are the measurements we took at Crane, the other 
mfgs. may have slightly different numbers or measuring scales; don't 
want to "diss" my competitors here. 

Torchon--100% wood, flourescent, L=95.11, Brightness=97.54
Concord Rag--mostly cotton, non-flourescent, L=93.83, B=80.25
Somerset E.--all cotton, slightly flourescent, L=95.93, B=93.06
and finally...
Museo--all cotton, non-flourescent, L=95.35, B=89.5 (SFA is made to 
these same L and B specs)

i do have some sheets of wm.turner, eclipse, and EAM here, and will 
try to get these tested in the next few days.  It will be interesting 
see the numbers Bernd gets from H. on the Photo Rag.

if you have questions, contact me off-list at rrex@...

thanks and hope this helps
robert rex