Digital BW, The Print

Hello Sarah,

>Hawk Mountain or Red River papers. 

Both have excellent papers, many of which you may have seen in the
"Great Paper Chase" review.  Don't overlook Red River's Dourian Art. 
It is nearly indistinguishable from PhotoRag and is double sided, so
work prints can be reused which significantly lowers cost in the long
run.  This has replaced PR for me because of that.  It's dmax is one
of the best, and it looks great with Eboni BO.  Since you are using
Eboni BO a lot, the ink color and dmax values listed in the Paper
Chase chart are especially relevent because that's what was used for
the tests.

I recommend keeping several papers on hand, especially with BO,
because different images will look better on different papers.  Hawk
Mtn's Condor BW and Merlin Smooth are great for cooler tones. 
Both have excellent dmax, though not as good as Dourian and VFA (but
they are warmer toned).

Condor BW, Merlin Smooth and Dourian are my favorite BO papers, but
I'm using more VFA for my 2400/K3 prints because K3 on VFA has better
dmax than Dourian and somehow is a really pleasing color match.  For
some reason I have trouble getting a satisfying color tone with K3 on
Dourian/PR.  K3 is also excellent on Condor and Merlin for cooler tone
prints.

I'm also very impressed with Museo Max because it is so physically
tough.  It's nearly impossible to scrape it off with a thumbnail
(Steve Karafyllakis can vouch for that, he tried it the other day). 
Unfortunately it's dmax (4.2 in Paper Chase units) is not quite as
good as Dourian and VFA (5), but it's still excellent, being between
Condor/Merlin (4.0) and the Innova papers (4.5).  I'd use it for a
book because it's so tough.  It's a handsome paper as well.

There are lots of good choices.  You just have to decide from among
the mix of attributes: paper color, ink tone, dmax, OBA content,
thickness, texture, cotton vs AC...sounds like the old 31-Flavors ice
cream ads :)

Regards,
Clayton


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