Digital BW, The Print

Hello Arthur,

>Anybody have any experience to report with this paper, or the 
>other Osprey Velvet (made by Hawk Mountain)?

I have made prints on all three Osprey papers (smooth, textured and
velvet) and also with Merlin Smooth and Condor BW.  

The Osprey papers are slightly warmer than Photo Rag in color, but
render Eboni ink slightly cooler.  They all have a soft "hairy"
surface (trying to find the right word...like an open grain as opposed
to a closed grain hard smooth surface).  As a result fine details are
not rendered as sharply as closed grain surfaces.  They also don't
have the Dmax that Merlin and Condor have.

The really outstanding Hawk Mtn papers are the Merlin and Condor,
which both have excellent Dmax and closed grain smooth surfaces which
render very sharp detail.  In addition, they both take carbon inks
much cooler than PR.  Condor, pure white, is the only cotton matte
inkjet paper I've seen that looks really cold neutral with carbon ink,
like a selenium toned Oriental Seagull print.  Merlin Smooth, cream
colored, is slightly warmer than Condor but still cooler than PR.  It
reminds me of Ilford MG II.  It's interesting stuff - next to PR it
looks neutral, but next to Condor it looks warm.  Both make beautiful
prints and are part of my arsenal of papers (I do Eboni BO printing
and must rely on different papers to get warm/cool variations).

The Osprey prints look good on their own, but placed next to Condor,
Merlin or PR they look weak.  To me they are not in the same class.  

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm