21. November 2003
On the Internet we are often told to stick with the papers and inks from the printer manufacturer to be sure to get good results. But what if there is a great paper out there that we haven't tried and that would give us the most amazing print, even though it didn't origin form the printer manufacturer?
I'm using an Epson 1290 (1280 in the US) printer, which can give me prints up to 13 x 44 inches. I am currently mainly using the Epson ColorLife paper but now I want to try out other papers.
This article will describe what to look for when finding a new paper...
What to look for?
I have a number of criteria that must be meet if I am going to use a certain photo paper.
I'll list them below in prioritized order:
1. There must exist an ICC profile that matches paper, ink and printer.
2. The paper must have a "certain" longevity.
3. Quality. It shall be fairly easy to handle when printing, not curl to much for example.
Lets' look at each criteria in detail.
1. ICC Profile
I normally require an ICC profile to be available for a certain paper, even before I consider trying it out.
I try to maintain a fully color managed workflow when working with photos, and therefore I also need a profile for the paper I want to test.
Why is this so important? Why not just forget about the profile and be happy with the paper?
Well, in order to maintain correct and reliable colors throughout your workflow, you want profiles for every color device you are using.
I know, I talked about color management before, but I'll do it again, because I find it so important. I also find that - contrary to what many people might think - a color managed workflow is easier to use than a workflow that isn't color managed (isn't using ICC profiles for each color device).
Color Management - again
For high quality photo prints I'm (still) using film and a scanner as input, but wether you are using a scanner or a digital camera the same applies: you need to profile your input device. You need to know how it "sees colors".
For profiling a scanner or a digital camera you need to capture a picture with "known colors" - normally called a color target. The result is then compared by computer software, with the original information about the color target (which comes along with the target in a file). Profiling software can now create a profile describing how the color device saw the colored patches on the target and how to compensate for whatever errors or deviations there might be. Read my article about profiling a scanner here.
This kind of profiling can be done with scanners, cameras, monitors and printers, creating a reliable color reproduction on each device.
However, profiling a printer is tricky and requires special hardware to read the color target, that the printer printed. Each paper, ink and printer combination needs to have it's own profile.
But since profiling a printer can become rather expensive (because of the required, extra hardware) and possible also very difficult and time-consuming I prefer that the manufacturer of a certain paper provide a profile for me.
Of course one can not expect that a manufacturer will make a profile for every printer and ink combination there is, but at least they could make profiles for the most widespread or famous models (like Epson and Canon perhaps).
Wether or not an ICC profile exist for the paper, ink and printer combination, is often fairly easy to check before you buy the paper. Simply visit the manufactures web site and look for it. A bit like looking for an updated driver for your graphic card.
We are often told around the net that a "custom profile" is the best there is and nothing beats it. This means that a profile created specifically for your printer and ink will give the best results. While this might be true, I'm still sure that the printers and inks are so alike, that a manufacturer made profile will give excellent results anyhow - and at a much lower cost.
OK, if no profile is around for a certain paper, and you absolutely want it, you can be forced to having a custom profile made.
But, I believe that "standard profiles" made by the printer or paper manufacturer is a very good way for the advanced amateur to get a color managed workflow at a low cost. People who has made their own custom profiles also agree that the profiles made by Epson are of very high quality, although not all are equally good.
sRGB
If you've seen a paper that you like, but can't get the colors right, then try out the sRGB setting in your printer driver (if it has one) and see what comes out.
sRGB is a "standard" (and default in Windows if no other is given) color space that most printers, scanners and cameras support.
When using sRGB in the printer, you must make sure NOT to give any profile when you print and you MUST make sure your image data is converted into sRGB before printing. If you do not use a color managed environment when editing, the sRGB printer setting is the one to use.
"Correct Colors?"
But what exactly is correct colors anyway?
Maybe I should say, that a color managed workflow provides "reliable colors" instead of "correct colors". When you have a color managed workflow you can be certain that the colors from your prints will match the colors from your transparencies or from your digital camera files.
As we all know, different transparency films will render colors differently and the term "correct colors" becomes somewhat confusing. But since I'm mainly scanning color slides, I like my screen and prints to match the colors I have there. I can always alter the colors if I want, but I like to be able to reproduce what my slide looks like. Only then will I benefit from selecting different kind of transparency films to get different kind of color renditions, say for portraits or for nature etc.
2. Longevity, archival performance
Now, this is a factor you can not be absolutely sure of in any way. Some manufactures of papers and inks will have made their own tests and some might not.
There is a number of printing techniques that will provide different archival performance from your prints. The test around the net will often give a number of years for each paper until "noticeable" fading or color shift appears. We are talking numbers from maybe 2 years to 200 years.
On a dye-based printer such as the Epson 1290/1280, we can not expect fade resistance for more than 25-27 years. OK for most people. On a pigment based printer, like the Epson 2100/2200 you will get fade resistance of 75+ years(!)
The type of ink used might therefore be the most important factor, but as a rule of thumb, for dye based papers it seems that the matte papers has the best longevity except for a few special papers, like the Epson ColorLife - but then it is clearly advertised that the fading resistance is good.
Testing longevity is a science and I really shouldn't discuss it here (because I don't know much about it), but if you can get information on a manufactures site about the longevity for a certain paper, ink and printer combination it would be good to know before you buy the paper.
3. Quality and handling
Unfortunately, testing the quality and handling of the paper, how much it curls etc. is something that can only be done AFTER you've purchased and printed a few photos.
With the dye-based inks on the Epson 1290/1280 it seems that matte paper gets very wet when printed on and can therefore easily curl unless it's very heavy. On the other hand, glossy prints looks very good and shiny although the longevity will suffer when using dye inks.
If you use paper rolls instead of sheets, it's important that the surface can take some "handling" because it can, in my experience, be very difficult not to touch the paper surface when using papers on rolls. This is simply because the paper needs to be cut off after it is printed or the paper curls so much that you need to get a good grip on it etc.
Hints, tips & tricks
Be aware, that if a manufacturer is producing both ink and paper you can be sure, that their online profiles are made for the combination of the two and NOT for the paper with original inks on your printer. Maybe you want to try out both ink and paper and then it's fine, but just be sure you know what the profile is for.
Setting up the correct ICC-profile
Now that I've talked about using a printer profile for the most of this article, I think I'd better show a few examples of where to set the profile when printing.
Epson driver example:
The picture above shows the setting used in the Epson driver for "Premium Glossy Photo Paper". Also notice that "No Color Adjustment" is selected. This is because, the profile that we'll use will make the necessary corrections. We don't want the driver to do anything.
I assume that selecting a paper type has to do with the amount of ink used (probably among other things). Each manufacturer of paper will show what setting to use in the driver. The printer driver settings are almost always given, but a profile is not(!)
Also notice the sRGB setting at the arrow.
The dialog above is taken from Adobe Photoshop 6. It's the print dialog in which we must choose the printer profile. We see, that our photo (document) is in the working color space (Adobe RGB) and an Epson profile is selected.
The dialog above is from Picture Window Pro.
Testing a certain profile
OK, lets' assume we've found a paper that we like and there is an ICC profile also, then how do we make sure the colors are correct or good enough?
Obviously one way of testing is simply to print your favorite shoots and see what they look like. But when comparing to other prints it might be difficult to see what exactly happens to what color hue etc.
© Norman Koren
I will therefore recommend that you take a look at Mr. Norman Korens site and download he's Color Testing Chart (shown above).
(Norman Korens site contains a large amount of interesting articles for the digital photographer, so do yourself a favor and visit it).
This chart contains a large number of colors, color patches and gray scale patches. You can then make several prints using different papers and compare them side by side. You can even compare with a Kodak gray scale or Kodak color charts, because Koren made his chart compatible with the standard Kodak test charts.
I find it very interesting to see how different colors behave on different paper and profile combinations using this test chart.
Here I will show some examples of prints made on different papers and with different profiles. The test chart itself does not contain a profile. If you use the chart, make sure NOT to convert it into some other color space.
The examples here are all printed on the Epson 1290 dye-based printer and then scanned on an Epson 1640SU flatbed scanner (in sRGB mode, less important to know, but the scanner is capable of a very good color accuracy with this setting).
The original chart:
ICC profiles
Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper, with matching ICC profile:
Color saturation is quite good on this paper although saturation is lower than the original chart, but there are some strange artifacts to be seen. Especially the dark green colors becomes a bit "muddy" - something that are quite visible on real prints as well.
Epson ColorLife, with matching ICC profile:
Lot's of strange bands here and there, but saturation is good. In the dark end, the colors very quickly turn all black. This paper and ink combination is actually one that I use quite often, but the very dark colors does present a problem sometimes.
Tetenal Photo Archival Matte Paper, with matching ICC profile:
This paper is from Tetenal and they have made a matching profile for it.
It's a very heavy weight matte paper that doesn't curl too much when used with the dye-inks from the Epson 1290.
Saturation is low, but there are more details in the dark end. The darker green colors seems to have a higher saturation than the lighter colors. Again we see a lot of strange "banding" etc. In general however, I'm very pleased with this paper and profile combo.
What is not shown here, is that the grayscale from this paper is very neutral.
sRGB
What if I didn't have a profile? What if I was using the sRGB setting instead?
Epson ColorLife, with sRGB driver setting:
Not bad at all. Perhaps not quite as vibrant as the dedicated profile (Epson ColorLife), but it matches the original quite well. The strange artifacts are fewer here.
Tetenal Photo Archival Matte Paper, with sRGB driver setting:
Surprisingly good match with the original! Although, again not so saturated and with some green "floating" into the reds (in the darker areas), but this has been the case with some of the other combinations as well.
I am quite surprised with these sRGB results and I might try to use the sRGB setting a bit more in the future on real photos.
An artificial photo
If you haven't got enough of testing yet, how about trying out an artificial photo?
No, it's not a joke. Our real photos, from either scanners or digital cameras, contains a lot of noise, dust or grain. In addition there might be problems with the input profile. All of these things can make it hard to really evaluate the output profile.
Therefore, Mr. Bruce Justin Lindbloom - a color scientist - has created an artificial picture. A computer generated 3D "photo" free of noise and other artifacts.
© Bruce J. Lindbloom
The picture can be downloaded from Mr. Lindblooms site. You'll also find a lot of other interesting (though quite scientific) information about color and color theory etc.
Try the papers out yourself!
What happened to the conclusion? Am I not going to tell you were to look for the best papers?
Well, there are so many papers around, but only a very few profiles. If you have an Epson or Canon printer you might take a look at Tetenal papers. I like them. Seems very promising.
Links
Papers
• Hahnemühle
• ILFORD A few ICC profiles for Epson printers.
• Lyson Inks and Papers. ICC profiles for Epson and Canon printers for Lyson ink.
• PermaJet Archival Inks and Papers. ICC profiles for ink and paper.
• Tetenal ICC profiles for Epson and Canon printers.
Shops
• Inkjetart.com Papers, inks, printers etc.
• Inkjetmall ICC profiles, Custom made profiles, Papers, Inks etc.
• Inkjetgoodies.com Papers, inks, printers, ICC profiles etc.
Profiling
• GretagMacbeth All kinds of color management tools and systems. Hard- and software for profiling.
• Monaco Systems Hard- and software for profiling.
• X-rite Hard- and software for profiling.
Other
• Bruce Lindbloom Color theory, RGB color spaces, CIELab info etc.
• Norman Koren Color Management. Creation of ICC profiles for printers. Evaluating the profiles etc. Highly Recommended Site!
• PHOTOgraphical.NET Scanner profiling on a budget.
• Wilhelm Imaging Research Research in digital print fading. Articles, books etc.
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