Digital BW, The Print

[Cross-posted from EpsonWideFormat group]

> What is the best paper for printing a fine art BW portrait on a 7600
> w photoblack ink?

>> Hahnemuhle Photorag.

>> Bam, I would guess that you should be using matte black rather than 
>> photo black.  I print with a 7600 and UC inks with IP, on Somerset 
>> velvet, and blacks look great.

What paper to use for printing B&W on a 7600 with Photo Black ink is 
the big question as far as I am concerned. First the background: for 
color in making 16x24 and 24x36 color prints for an exhibition I tried 
both Photo Black and Matte Black inks and concluded that Photo Black on 
Epson Semi-Matte paper looked substantially better than Matte Black on 
Epson Enhanced Matte (EEM) or Photo Rag. Basically, while some people 
are happy with matte paper prints, looking at prints of the same images 
side-by-side, the Photo Black/Semi-Matte combination produces wider 
gamut, better saturation, deeper blacks, broader dynamic range, 
smoother tonal transitions and sharper prints than Matte Black with 
matte paper. And the difference is not even close -- the Photo 
Black/Semi-Matte prints are substantially better.

For B&W, my conclusions are similar: looking at the same photo printed 
with Photo Black/Semi-Matte and with Matte Black/EEM shows that the 
former produces deeper blacks, brighter highlights and smoother tonal 
transitions (better gradation). The same photo printed with Photo 
Black/EEM produces a flatter, muddier print than Matte Black/EEM, and 
to me is not acceptable. (Incidentally, Matte Black looks substantially 
better on EEM than on Photo Rag -- the fact that the Ultrachrome inks 
don't look very good on Photo Rag has been confirmed by many other 
people on this group and on the DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint goup.)

I know that many people are happy with and prefer to print B&W  on 
matte papers and, while such prints are often beautiful they just are 
not a "bright" and photographic as silver prints. There is nothing 
remarkable in this statement: Ansel Adams in his book, The Print, 
stated years ago that the brightness range of a print on glossy paper 
is much greater than that on a matte paper, and that is why he 
preferred the look of air-dried glossy prints. While inkjet prints on 
matte paper can look very much like platinum prints, they look quite 
different from silver prints on glossy air-dried paper.

In my view, Photo Black/Semi-Matte B&W come the closest to air-dried 
silver prints on glossy paper, but there is a big problem as these 
prints show "bronzing" as you vary the angle at which light falls on 
the paper or your angle of view. I am told that lamination eliminates 
bronzing, and that prints framed under glass also don't show bronzing 
but it's a problem to try to sell such a print if the buyer sees it 
before it is under glass. Now, if I could only find a paper like 
Semi-Matte than prints with Photo Black without bronzing...

--Mitch/Bangkok