Digital BW, The Print

After posting the following information, I received my box of 
Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper. On Friday, I printed the same image as 
described below with the same vmp8-mw8.acv curve. I made no other 
modifications. For this image and this curve, the Photo Rag paper 
produces the best image. The paper is a little whiter and it prints a 
little warmer than the Museo. It's also a slightly sharper print than 
the Museo, but, using the loupe, I can see microbanding throughout 
the image. Despite this, it's the best print at a viewing distance of 
15-18 inches.

I made a print on the Photo Rag of the same image using the vmp8-
nc8.acv curve. Posterization was pretty bad but there was no banding 
whatsoever. I'm not sure what this indicates. I printed another photo 
restoration image using this same combination and there was neither 
posterization nor microbanding. This last image file's resolution was 
480dpi while the other image was 300dpi. I didn't alter the 
resolution of either prior to printing.

The bottom line is that the Photo Rag is looking like the best paper 
of the lot based on this limited testing. Museo is a very close 
second. I'll post again when I've done similar comparisons with 
another image or two.

Tom Keesling

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Tom Keesling" 
<tom.keesling@a...> wrote:
> I'm still very new to both BW printing and the MIS VM inks, but I 
> thought I'd share what I found this morning when printing a photo 
> restoration image on various papers in WIN98SE on a 1280 printer.
> 
> I've never used EAM, so I probably steepened my learning curve 
> somewhat, but I'm making some progress. I don't know enough to give 
> much more than a general observation, but maybe that'll be helpful.
> 
> I'm printing a 1904 8x10 image that I scanned from a very good 
grade 
> of newsprint (vintage 1976), so print quality expectations were 
never 
> very high. However, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of 
the 
> prints. 
> 
> I printed the image on Museo (250gsm), Epson SFA (425gsm), and 
> Brightcube Eclipse Satine 190 papers. I used the VMP8-MW8.acv curve 
> for all three prints and viewed them under an Ott-lite.
> 
> My least favorite of the three was the Eclipse Satine. Although I 
> like the paper (in part because it's quite a bit whiter than the 
> others), the blacks didn't look as deep as on the other two. Could 
> this be because of the combination of this warm curve and this 
bright 
> white paper? This paper did seem to show just a little more detail, 
> however. 
> 
> The Museo paper I think is just a little whiter than the Epson SFA, 
> but they're very close. The Museo image is a little sharper than 
the 
> SFA image, but not by much at all and the sky is less mottled 
(better 
> looking) in the Museo print.
> 
> Overall, the Museo print is the best of the three in this instance.
> I like all three papers and will continue to experiment with all 
> three. I've got plenty of Museo and Epson SFA to experiment with 
and 
> will order the Eclipse Satine when they get it stocked again. 
> 
> I hope this is helpful...
> 
> Tom Keesling
> Intelligent Design, Inc.