Paper Chase - INNOVA – Three new canvas media

"…this media is now crowned as the king of the gloss canvasses, nothing we have tested to date gets even close…" Photo Ultra Glossy Canvas

Summary Errors Our original intention was to hold over the review of Innova’s three new canvas materials to the next issue. However, initial testing of the Photo Ultra Glossy Canvas was so impressive that we decided we had to prime you so that you could go and look for yourself at Focus. (Visit stand C30.) Ultra Glossy Canvas is, as far as we know, the first canvas to employ a baryta-like coating, the type which have so impressed us over the past six months of testing. Despite this we were still taken aback by the test results – this material has lifted the standards to new heights in every department, sometimes by considerable margins!
Just to take Dmax as an example. It was so high that we immediately remeasured the sample thinking we had made an error. We recalibrated the spectrophotometer and returned the same value of 2.40. We should have been ready for it really. We noticed, as soon as we made the profiling target print, that the depth and vibrancy of the colours were outstanding.

We made high-resolution profiles on an Epson 4800 using Photo Black ink. This printer does not have a media setting for ‘canvas’ so we chose Premium Glossy Photo Paper and a resolution of 2880dpi. The initial print was about 5 per cent too dark and a couple of per cent desaturated, so we tuned the profile to produce an almost 100 per cent improvement in what were already good figures. All parts of the gamut were accurately recorded, particularly in terms of hue and saturation. The remaining errors were in the lightness channel and caused by the slightly low reflectivity of the base material – you cannot add more lightness by adding ink. This had the greatest effect on the primary yellow, adding ink to create the saturated yellow dropped the lightness by a few points. Despite this the average error returned was 3.7 ΔE Lab/1.85ΔE 2000 bringing this canvas material up with the best of any type of surface. Rather bizarrely the results were so good that this canvas would meet the GRACol/FOGRA standards for high-end contract proofing! The average error for all the flesh tones was 1.2ΔE Lab, a barely detectable error over the entire gamut of skin tones.

Gamut Volumes

The gamut volume measured at 875,754 after we had tweaked the profile (it was 853,398 before) and we show a comparative graph with our data from our canvas tests of 2004/2005. Some of the improvement, of course, is due to the improved ink set in the Epson 4800 but even so Ultra Glossy Canvas stands way above the crowd.

The media also performed well using ABW on the Epson 4800. We chose a ‘Light’ setting for the tone, which, on reviewing the print, might have been better with ‘Normal’. However, we created a clean neutral print, which fully exploited the Dmax of 2.4 and a metamerism of just 1.7 (ΔE Lab D65 to Tungsten A at 50% grey).

Ultra Glossy is billed as ‘water resistant’. Although we do not have a scientific test for this feature, we were unable to smudge the print with a wet finger (and we did rub quite hard). The coating is very fast drying. We checked the ‘drydown’ time but saw no significant changes (<0.1 ΔE Lab) after the first two minutes. The surface is also very scratch resistant and was unmarked by dragging fingernails across it. Claims have been made for improved cracking resistance during stretch mounting. We were unable to crack the coating by tugging on it, but did crack it by folding it right back on itself (in the way you might if you were mitreing a corner).

Overall then this media is now crowned as the king of the gloss canvasses, nothing we have tested to date gets even close in almost all of our measurements. It is a significant milestone in media development which will be welcomed by all canvas users and will also create a few converts to the cause!

Fine Art Matte Canvas 340gsm
This is the second of the new media. The backing canvas appears to be the same as the Ultra Gloss, a polycotton, Oxford Twill with the same diameter warp and weft threads. The surface coating is radically different and is a natural cream colour. It is also quite absorbent with a high ink spread, running to between 0.3mm and 0.4mm alongside black-to-solid-colour interfaces. The media does not hold detail well (as found with the ‘soft art papers’ reviewed in this feature). This makes Fine Art Matte more suited to artistic interpretations and the reproduction of paintings but not well-suited to photographic work, in which detail is important.

Dry-down Innova Photo Matt After the excitement of record-breaking data from the Ultra Glossy, this was a slightly quieter test set! In the unvarnished state, data were very much ball-park for a matte canvas. The maximum error was 28.8 ΔE Lab (in an orange–red) although there were a number of 20+ error points. The average was 12.8 ΔE Lab/5.8ΔE 2000 with saturation and lightness being the main contributors to the overall error. The Dmax was 1.27 (29.2% Lightness value). Metamerism was 1.3 ΔE Lab (D65 to Tungsten A on 50% grey).

Photo Matte Canvas 350gsm
This is quite a different coating to the Fine Art Matte Canvas. For a start, the print came out of the 4800 glistening wet. The colour stabilised to within 0.5ΔE Lab in about five minutes, but was only truly stable after 25 minutes.

The colour audit data were similar to Fine Art Canvas, an average of 12.2ΔE Lab/5.5ΔE 2000. Again the errors were almost all within the lightness and saturation components, the hue values were very accurate. The Dmax was 1.25 (28% Lightness) and the metamerism was 1.1ΔE Lab. Photo Matte Canvas is far less absorbent than Fine Art Canvas with just a tiny amount of ink spread at solid-colour interfaces. The highlights held detail all the way up to 250RGB points, the Granger Chart was very smooth. The shadows blocked slightly early at 25RGB points.

Varnishing
Both Matte Canvas media are suitable for accepting a varnish coat. We used two coats of DCP Giclée Varnish. This was applied with a soft 2” brush (a synthetic, EasyClean) which produced some smearing of lettering on the Photo Matte and some lightening of the crests of the weave in the Fine Art Matte. Our recommendation would be to apply at least the first coat with a velour or sponge roller and not to brush out this first coat at all. The depth of colour was increased by the varnish, in line with previous findings. The changes in Dmax are tabled. Neither media approached the Ultra Glossy, even after varnishing. However, some uses demand that varnish is applied to the finished box-wrap.

Summary
While the Ultra Glossy is obviously outstanding, the Fine Art Matte and Photo Matte media are reasonably typical of their type. If the claims for increased stretch cracking resistance are true, however, this will eliminate a feature that has proven troublesome in the past. Without varnishing, both media look a little flat, but some may prefer the look. Certainly the neutral base tone allows the creation of accurate hues, even if the depth and saturation are lagging.

COSTS
RRP for the 17" rolls (all 15m long) are as follows:
IFA-33-432x15m - Fine Art Canvas Matte 340gsm – £125.10
IFA-35-432x15m - Photo Canvas Matte 350gsm – £145.00
IFA-36-432X15M - Photo Canvas Ultra Glossy 380gsm – £166.00

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