Digital BW, The Print

Hello Arlene,

>is any paper as good or better than H Photo Rag? 

A lot depends on what "good" and "better" mean.  If Dmax is the
primary thing then the answer is likely no - as Paul has mentioned, PR
has the best Dmax.  However, some other papers have almost as good a
Dmax and look great - it is only when placed next to PR that the
difference can be seen.  But they don't look like PR.

There are other things (paper color, ink color and texture) that have
to be considered as well.  One interesting thing is that warmer
colored papers don't necessarily equate to warmer ink color.  At least
one medium warm paper renders carbon inks very cool.  So there's a
wide variety to choose from.

I'm in the final stages of an article comparing a number of papers
(hope to publish next week), and I'm using a system of rating these
things so that the reader can have some idea of what the papers look
like.  Paper color is rated with a White Scale of W1 - W6 (1 is pure
white and 6 is creamy warm), and Black ink (Eboni) color is B1 - B6 (1
is cold and 6 is very warm). 

Photo Rag is W2+B4, and so far I've found only one other paper that
has that combination and it has a smooth surface, seems to have no
flaking and is much less expensive.  Unfortunately it's Dmax is not in
the same class as PR, otherwise it would be a ringer for it. Sigh.

Some papers that do have excellent Dmax have paper/ink colors of W1+B1
(Condor), W4+B2 (Merlin), W4+B6 (Velvet Fine Art) and W6+B5 (Premier
Hot Press).  So while they all have good Dmax none of them look
anything like PR, and some have different contrast, requiring some
adjusting to match the proof print.  

Then of course there's thickness, texture, flaking, OBAs...

Lots of things to consider

Regards,
Clayton


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