Digital BW, The Print

One of things I have found most difficult evaluating an inkjet print 
(not paper) has been the apparent sensitivity to lighting condition.  
So, using an old Minolta color meter, I've been looking at prints 
under a 5K light at 450-500 LUX and then walking it around the house, 
near windows, and in the kitchen where I have set up an easel under a 
combination of window light during the day and both halogen and 
incandescent lighting day and night.  I have been using largely the 
VFA.  

These evaluations have been difficult to pin down and I have had some 
surprises looking at prints in other environments, including recently 
a gallery under mostly halogen light.  I've mostly chalked it up to 
the increased sensitivity we all have about the digital process, 
exercising standards and technology that we never used in "wet" days.

Well, after two days looking at the USFA, I noticed that it was very 
consistent in different lighting conditions, sort of what I remember 
from darkroom days.  It finally dawned on me that the tonal scale of 
VFA (with its OBAs) is partly (and significantly) a product of not 
only illumination levels and white balance, but the amount of UV 
present in the light source.  Duh!  This, in my book, is a good 
reason all in itself to avoid OBAs.  The other reasons I'm not sure 
about, but an OBA-free paper certainly can't hurt anything.

Walt

> One of things I have found most difficult evaluating an inkjet print
> (not paper) has been the apparent sensitivity to lighting condition.
> So, using an old Minolta color meter, I've been looking at prints
> under a 5K light at 450-500 LUX and then walking it around the house,
> near windows, and in the kitchen where I have set up an easel under a
> combination of window light during the day and both halogen and
> incandescent lighting day and night.  I have been using largely the
> VFA.

Hi Walt - this is exactly what I have found - usually giving what I term an
unpleasant "magentarism" - not usually a big shift, but noticeable.

The biggest culprit seems to be OBA's  - which appear to vary in how they
are applied in a paper from manufacturer to manufacturer (some in the paper
base, some in the coating, some in both). I have also found the Epson UC
black also tended to exacerbate this while the MIS Ebony doesn't do so to
the same extent.

Get a mix of halogen and daylight and it is often particularly noticeable.

In all my (reasonably unscientific testing) I have found that non-oba papers
certainly seem to give the best results in avoiding this (Arches Infinity,
the new Museo Max, the non-oba Innova papers. I find that VFA/USFA while
nice is just too low in contrast with blacks that aren't deep enough. And I
don't know what Moab does with their non-oba papers, but they just suck in
this regard, even without oba's) after that for me, it's finding a non-oba
paper which has a type of paper base I am happy with - I've never minded
slightly warm, even from the old darkroom days - warm but not too warm.

Overall, it seem to be a combination of type and application of oba's,
original paper base and ink, in any one of an almost infinite number of
variations....

And if you pull out some old darkroom prints on different papers, you will
notice that many of them actually do the same in different lights -
metamerism isn't anything new - , but to a much lesser degree than coated
inkjet papers, so it is generally less noticeable. (and of course many of
those papers have OBA's in the to a greater or lesser extent)