Digital BW, The Print

Did anyone receive a promotional phone call like I did from Breathing
Color recently? They practically begged me to try their new Optica
smooth art paper. Bright white( but with no obas??, their secret
forumula, uh huh). I was about to hang up on them when the salesman
told me the dmax was overwhelmingly superior to Photorag that it made
dmax on pr look grey. They had this in develoment for years, etc. He
said the Optica dmax was at leat 2.4 with Ultrachrome pigments. Now
this is just a matte paper mind you with MK so it got my attention.

Well I bought the 17" sample roll and when linearized with Studio
Print and NK6 Piezo the dmax is 1.61 at best. I get 1.67 with Photorag
and these inks. With Ultrachrome K2 MK I have a 1.59. 

Either these guys are lying to the dmax or I am not approaching this
media correctly. I linearize with these inksets every couple of weeks
so  I certainly don't know what else to do with it. Crane made this
kind of exagerated claim too last year but at least they were close to PR.

Read this :

http://www.breathingcolor.com/bc/catalog/index.php?cPath=107

By the way. Their scientific graphs also show their papers and Crane
Museo as having the least amount of mottle of any of the leading fine
art papers. If you belive that I have a bridge in Alaska that I'll
sell you cheap.


Now I remain open minded and have certainly made mistakes before but
I'd like some comparitive data about this.

john