Digital BW, The Print

I'm less and less inclined to get into differences of opinion on the
internet these days, but with this I'll make an exception. The
announcement of this review has been cross posted on every Epson
related list I am on, that and the fact that my tests with the paper
were less than stunning move me to respond.
Considering the high price of this stuff, some alternate views are
needed.
This paper has some eccentricities. The way it takes ink reminds me
very much of some papers I've tried that have gelatin coatings like a
long gone paper from Bulldog (interestingly call PhotoRag if I
recall), Oce watercolor paper (sold under different names different
places), and Luminos Charcoal R.
This coating takes ink slowing, so it stays wet on the surface of the
paper longer than coatings used by most other papers. This has several
consequences.
Firstly, you may have pizza wheel tracks since areas of high ink load
will be very puddled on the surface as the paper moves under the
wheels.
When the ink dries on the surface (rather than absorbed), high ink
load areas have a different reflective quality than the rest of the
paper. So blacks or near blacks will only appear their deepest under
the right lighting, it's related to the bronzing effect others refer
to with glossy papers.
It has a definite ink load limit, beyond which you will get mottle,
bleed, possible pizza wheel tracks and the above mentioned effect.
Compared to the Hahnemühle line of papers, which are still the
ones to
beat in terms of objective performance in the art paper category, it
displays a lower Dmax and gamut.
All of that said, the Dmax and gamut are not bad compared to something
like Museo. It also presents the subtle hues of quad sets differently,
another quality I've seen in papers with unusual coatings. For color
you will definitely need good profiles, I've tried the Nash 9600
profiles on Arches' site, and found some problems. It moves the warmer
quad inks to a more uniformly neutral hue, I haven't tried something
like the Selenium inks with it.
I haven't tested, but I'll bet this paper takes dyes better than pigments.
BUT-
It will produce beautiful prints. Since it has a nice surface and
color, there are images that look very nice on it if the qualities
they require fall within the paper's abilities.
In the category of coated fine art inkjet papers, there are others
less expensive that perform better under all circumstances.
I strongly suggest that, considering it's expense, you find some
samples and do some tests. If your particular images sing on it and
nothing else, and you are a trust fund kid, you're good.
I wish there were more options, but the Hahnemühle papers remain
(unfortunately) the papers to beat for all around performance in this
category of papers that I have tried. I don't have a lot of test
numbers to report since I don't write articles. Steve Meyers and I
fooled with it enough for me to know it's not going to work for me so
testing stopped. Life is short.
I should add that after seeing a few samples of the paper, I was very
excited to try it. That was before the price was announced of course.
Tyler

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, shashinka@a...
wrote:
> Hello:
>
> A review of Arches Infinity Standard and Natural White papers by me
and
> Harald Johnson is available at the following link:
>
> http://www.dpandi.com/newsreviews/reviews/ai/index.html
>
> All the best!
>
> Andrew Darlow