Digital BW, The Print

It seems as though there are finally some options for the performance
Hahnemühle papers have been providing for B&W printing. I did some
quick linearizations and test prints on Inovva Photo Smooth Cotton,
Inovva Soft Texture Art, and another soon to be out labeled Inovva
Rough Texture 315gsm, apparently to be called Cold Press 315 gsm.
These are all coated 100% cotton (not sure if the rough is cotton)
papers in the same family as other coated fine art papers like
Hahnemühle, Somerset, and Hawk Mountain.
What suprised me was that with Cone quad inks, the dmax for all were
hovering right around in the same area as all the Hahnemühle papers we
use. Within 0.01 or so plus or minus. Actually the highest was Soft
texture, 0.002 higher than PhotoRag, these differences are hardly
worth mentioning. Also interesting is that as they reached dmax they
were not leveling off, as other papers including Hahnemühle seem to
do. This suggests that the coatings take ink very well, and higher
dmax might be possible with different inks or larger dot size.
Photo Smooth Cotton would be the contender for a PhotoRag look, being
the smoothest and whitest. Soft Texture Art and Cold Press 315 gsm are
slightly less bright probably indicating less OBAs. The textures of
these papers might be compared to German Etching and William Turner,
but less coarse, as though the texture has been knocked down, more
rolling and less granular. Very attractive. Initial test prints looked
good, until I do more testing with different hues etc. it'll be hard
to tell if there is a parting of the ways between these and the
Hahnemühle papers in terms of image feel.
I'm anxious to try some color on this stuff as well.
That's all I have for now, but it's encouraging enough to report so
those interested can begin testing for themselves. I'm also lead to
believe pricing may be more palatable.
As usual I would highly recommend Jim at shadesofpaper.com as a
supplier, thanks Jim for the samples and the opportunity to test.
Actually, just thanks for everything.

Options like this are good, we need more of them.
Tyler