Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Scott McLoughlin
<scott@a...> wrote:
> And what are the alternatives.  Is there some basic taxonomy of papers
> on the Web somewhere, hopefully with pics and brands and samples?

There may be such thing, but I haven't seen it. Perhaps at an artists
supply...

Anyway, watercolor paper is paper made for watercolor painting. It's
thick, but the fibers are loose and natural. It's very absorbant, so
it can suck up plenty of watercolor paint. It's generally pretty rough
(even the "smooth" varieties) to give the paintbrush something to
react against. And it's made in a very "neutral" fashion, it doesn't
contain any tension or stress in the paper, so that when you get it
wet, it's flat again when it dries, it doesn't permanently deform,
wrinkle or warp (smoother drawing, printing, and writing papers are
"stressed" from being flattened with high pressure rollers or
stretched when they dry, so that they suffer permanent deformation
when they get wet and the fibers relax).

Watercolor papers used for inkjet printing are usually coated, to
limit how much ink they can absorb, or they'd suck down more ink than
an inkjet printer can typically output.

Other inkjet papers are "matte" or coated with glossy coatings. In
those cases, the paper is highly processed, rolled very flat,
"candled", etc. Such papers tend to be thinner than watercolor papers,
but denser. They're more like drawing paper.