Paper Chase - The Four Baryt

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No this is not a headline for a new line-up of tenors we just thought it had a bit of a ring to it! The feature arose from a conversation on the Fotospeed stand at Focus. We were looking at the new Canson Baryta Photographique (which is a 'true baryta' and decided to also compare the award-winning 'Platinum' series from Fotospeed (which are 'baryta-like'). It should be stressed at the outset that this is not a competitive shoot-out, the papers have been chosen because they cover a range of properties and are available from this one source, the user must decide for themselves which they have preference for. The aim, therefore, is to explain and show where the differences lie and also discuss how to get the best out of these premium papers. The Platinum series has been tested before by Paper Chase, but we decided to start afresh and maintain an identical test regime for all four media.

Power Distribution Curve Graph

Base Properties
The underlying base medias provide a good variety of tones and properties. The Platinum Gloss WT is a warm-tone, creamy product, the Platinum Gloss is a brightened, cool blue. The Platinum Lustre is slightly warm and the Canson is almost pure neutral (D65/2° measurements). The Platinum Lustre has a very high reflectivity at 99.4%, the Canson is also bright at 98.5%. The spectral traces indicate that Platinum Gloss contains optical brighteners but none of the others does. This was confirmed when we examined the surfaces in the UV booth.

Fotospeed Barytas Graph

The underlying base medias provide a good variety of tones and properties. The Platinum Gloss WT is a warm-tone, creamy product, the Platinum Gloss is a brightened, cool blue. The Platinum Lustre is slightly warm and the Canson is almost pure neutral (D65/2° measurements). The Platinum Lustre has a very high reflectivity at 99.4%, the Canson is also bright at 98.5%. The spectral traces indicate that Platinum Gloss contains optical brighteners but none of the others does. This was confirmed when we examined the surfaces in the UV booth.

Error analysis fotospeed barytas

In terms of grain and curl, the Canson and Gloss WT were flat; the Platinum Lustre and Gloss were curled at the short edge, towards the coated side. As with previous tests run on baryta-like surfaces we anticipated having to open the platen gap to avoid problems with head-strikes.

The paper weights and callipers are shown in the table

Settings
Having decided to run bespoke profiles for a consistent comparison, we decided upon the following settings:
Test Printer: Epson Stylus Pro 3800 with Photo Black ink
Resolution: 2880dpi
Media Setting: Premium Semi Gloss Photo Paper, PSGPP
High Speed: OFF

In accordance with best practice (as advised by Epson) we set the media source to Rear Manual. Because the papers were thicker than the default for PSGPP we set the paper thickness manually to 5 units. In accordance with advice (from Hahnemühle) we set the Platen Gap to 'wide' and increased the Dwell time to 20 units to allow more drying time (in the Paper Config of the driver).

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