Paper Chase - Epson Traditional Photo Paper

This media arrived as the feature on baryta papers was nine-tenths complete – such is the speed of progress on the inkjet front! It is only natural that, with everybody extolling the virtues of UltraChrome K3 for monochrome, that Epson would wish to join the party with a paper offering of their own. They have called it Epson Traditional Photo Paper – we hope nobody will be fooled into taking it out in the dark and trying to enlarge and develop it! It is also launced in the USA as 'Exhibition Fiber Paper'.

Base Properties

Epson has chosen to enter the market at the premium end with quite a weighty paper at 325gsm and a calliper of 340 microns. It is quite flat and certainly did not have any of the problems of some baryta papers in clattering into the heads of the Epson 3800. It is optically brightened with a lift up to 106% reflectance at the blue end of the spectrum making for a cool and bright paper. The media was so new when we received it that no other details or profiles were available.

Colour Performance

Traditional Photo Paper behaved in a similar manner to the other baryta papers we have tested. The gamut volume was the second highest we have measured at 876,769 and the Granger Chart was smooth, without any imperfections. There was no sign of bronzing or gloss differential and the paper was dry to the touch as it came out of the printer. On the 3800 it was necessary to load one sheet at a time.

In spite of the optical brightening, all of the errors came in below 3 ΔE 2000 with an average of 4.6ΔE Lab/2.64 ΔE2000 for the Macbeth swatches. The profile had correctly mapped the colours to match the cool blue of the base white and so the skin tones were dragged a little towards blue-magenta creating a little desaturation. The earth tones were a tenth below the group average (ie better).

Overall the colour performance is all one might expect from a baryta paper.

Monochrome Performance

The Dmax was a typical baryta value of 2.18. We squeezed a little more off an unprofiled print at 2.33. The metamerism was low at 1.0 for the 50% Lightness swatch (D65 to Tungsten). The neutrals were mapped to the cool base (the paper is almost 5 Lab points blue. The greyscale was almost perfectly linear right down to the deepest black at 5.8% Lightness. Visually the shadows blocked at 20 RGB points, typical of a profiled printer.

This is a paper, like its companions, that has an uncanny likeness to a traditional air-dried fibre-base silver halide paper. With its weight and rich blacks it creates a striking impression.

ABOVE: The set-up used to closely mimic the effect of heavy gold toning.

Making Prints

The audit print was indistinguishable from that made with other baryta-based media except for a slight variations in the ‘shapes’ within the Granger Chart. We remain huge fans of this class of paper. Epson had kindly provided sufficient material for us to get to grips with some real test printing and we started with monochrome. Taking a cue from the Ilford press release we investigated various traditional toned effects but started by measuring some real silver halide prints. For simplicity we chose to use Pantone colours to introduce the colour element of tone although we recognise that there are dozens of ways of completing the task.

The graph shows the scatter plots from multiple readings off a thiocarbamide, sepia-toned print in which the sodium hydroxide level had been adjusted to give a more purple hue rather than the more yellow-green that we dislike. The blue-toned print was iron toned with a ferrous ammonium citrate-potassium ferricyanide-sulphuric acid concoction – oh happy days! In reality this slightly unstable technique produces a rather weak cyan tone which may or may not last the course, some of our examples have lasted 10 years others have definitely not – fading is not just an inkjet problem! In both cases we measured both the old silver print and the final inkjet, they were remarkably similar.

We spent longer on the gold-toned mimic. Gold toning is as expensive as it sounds and is used in premium-class silver printing to confer both longevity and status (ie it sounds good at the gallery). A quick wash in a gold toner does not change the colour at all. However, if you give it a lot longer and mix the gold toning with other toners such as selenium or sepia, you can create quite striking colour shifts. Our example is at the extreme end of the scale, a rich peachyorange with enhanced shadow detail. It was made with a few clicks of the mouse rather than a few flicks of pound notes!

The Method

Using solid colour layers and Pantones we were able to scroll through the possibilities very quickly. The basis of the method is to open a desaturated RGB file and then, in the Layers Palette, to click the half-moon icon and select Solid Color. The Color Libraries button is then clicked and Pantone Solid Color selected. Then you can set the layer Blending Mode to Overlay (or Softlight) and then arrow down to move through the various Pantones. Generally we found the darker variants of the Pantones to give the best effect. We got close to the press sample of gold toning using Pantones 1535 and 154 but the closest match came from Pantone 717C. As an added refinement we tried both Overlay and Softlight as the blending modes. Further refinement was provided by using both Softlight and Overlay each at 50% opacity.

Blue iron toning using Pantone 5405 in Overlay Mode at 100% opacity.

Sepia toning. Pantone 753 used in Overlay mode at 100% opacity

Heavy Gold Toning. Pantone 1595 used on two Solid Color Layers; the Overlay was used at 39%, the Softlight used at 69%.

Notes: Picking a Pantone with an overall density around 50% seems to create the most reliable result. The Pantone colours can be called up by typing the number when the color picker is set to 'Color Libraries'. You may then scroll through the Pantones using the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard.

Notice how the gold toning method has opened up the shadows in comparison to the other two. You have to experiment with the setting watching the result very carefully. If you find a method you really like, make it into a Photoshop Action, that way you do not have to remember how you did it last time when you need a repeat performance!

Photo Quote: All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth. - Richard Avedon