articles/Paper/layingtrail-page9
by Mike McNamee Published 01/04/2004
Coats Please! Just when we thought we had it sussed we received a few bottles of coating material to test. There are a number of products on the market for improving the abrasion resistance of canvas and fine art papers. While these are normally the province of the fine art publisher they are very pertinent to the social photographer who sells canvas portraits that are not behind glass. The coatings can be very tough and also provide a barrier to keep out damaging, airborne contaminants such as water and ozone. They also filter ultra violet light to the extent that significant fade resistance improvements have been reported. A result that we did not expect was that the colour accuracy is improved very substantially by the application of the coating. In our initial test, one colour audit showed a 5 fold improvement on the precision of the colour in the lightness channel. In all instances the depth of the black was substantially improved (i.e. doubled!).
This is an area that we are now investigating along with the papers. Watch this space! for the French LANA paper, used with Epson Ultrachrome Photo Black and Matte Black inks. The application of a uv protective coating from ClearShield has richened the black very substantially. Preliminary data on the new Permajet papers showed some spectacular results. Above the excellent grey scale linearity from the Epson 2100 with Matte Black inks and a bespoke profile. The graph on the right is shown on the scale we sometimes use for showing the neutrality of a grey scale. The Omega data is clustered so close to the neutral in the warm quadrant that a larger scale would normally have to be used to examine the data - a cracking good result!
PERMAJET - NEW PRODUCTS The world moves at a frantic pace. No sooner do we put a line in the sand then more product appears. Permajet let us into a little secret just as we went to print. Three new papers are going to be launched at both PMA and Focus.
They are called Alpha - Natural White (310 gsm)
Delta - Matt Fibre (275gsm)
Omega - High White (310gsm)
In collaboration with Permajet we were anxious to see how a profile made on our 2100 machine would transfer to another machine. Accordingly we built a profile and sent it away by email for testing on another 2100 using the same batch of prototype paper.
The comparison was gratifyingly good. Although the remote machine did not reach the dizzy heights of our data, the difference was marginal and only detectable by very careful comparison and machine measurement.
The home machine delivered spectacular data. Indeed on our all time record holder's list for overall colour precision, the Omega went straight to the number 1 slot and the Delta followed it into the number 3 slot. All our data from both machines was in the top half of the all time list. We will reveal the entire data set in a proper review as part of this series, but we thought you would like to hear about it so you can go and see the paper at Focus. The highlights of the data are as follows:
Over the whole Macbeth Chart the average errors of the three papers were 5.4, 5.6, and 6.2 in Lab Delta E. Refer to the notes on previous pages and you will see that this is inside contract proof standards. The flesh tone average errors across all Caucasian tones were under 3 delta E Lab. The breakdown of the flesh errors showed that 80% of the error was in the lightness channel, the colours themselves were essentially smack on the nail! The precision of the flesh tones was mimicked (or due!) to the accuracy of the reds. The Macbeth Moderate Red and Spectral Red had hue errors close to zero, barely measurable in fact.
The maximum density of the blacks was around 17% (brightness). This is good for a matt, fine art paper, which invariably absorb more ink but almost twice as good as some data that we have on other papers. Even so it is the lack of maximum density which probably causes the profile to leave the skin tones a little light on density - all art papers do this.
The grey tone scale was good, essentially linear with no bumps in it. The neutrality was first class and all the neutral tones lay in the warm (Red Yellow) segment of the plot in keeping with the creamy warmness of the base. All the data points off the neutrals were within 2 delta E of perfect neutrality - on this scale some papers with OBA's get out to an error of 10.
The Earth Tone data were excellent so any of these papers would make a good all rounder for top class work.
Getting a professional quality print from an inkjet machine can be frustrating and expensive, particularly if the system is not calibrated. Add long high resolution printing times and your workflow suffers.
I have been extremely impressed with a new system called STUDIO introduced by Ilford, so much that I invested almost immediately when realising the long-term advantages in cost savings, ease of use, better workflow, technical backup and support. The cost of my investment would be realised in just two reasonable wedding sales.
What is it?
The heart of the system revolves around their RIP (Raster Image Processor) software, which handles printer and ICC profile management, page layout and media type, allowing multi tasking operations through a dedicated printer server. The choice of printers are the current Epson 7600/9600 or the forthcoming Epson 4000. These machines are connected to your imaging computer via a network cable, or you can run the entire system as a self contained unit by loading Photoshop onto the server.
The entire installation will cost in the region of £3995 for the 7600 set-up or £2995 with the 4000 printer. Whilst this might seem extravagant, bear in mind that full technical support for upgrades, equipment, monitor and printer calibration is free for 12 months, and would cost you a lot more if you were to buy these items individually.
So why would Ilford sell you something at a loss! It's quite simple really, Ilford aren't in the machine market but they are probably the most prolific producer of inkjet media in the world, and they make it for the widest variety of print machinery. They envisage a long-term partnership between you and Ilford in buying specialist media to use in their system. They obviously think that you will prefer their media over other manufacturers' and will be so pleased with the results and cost benefits that you will not want to go anywhere else. The proof they say is in the eating, so...
The Media
lford make a range of specialist media specifically for use with the Epson printers using Ultrachrome ink sets. Whilst other manufactures' media (including Ilford's) are made for a wide range of printers and ink types, Ilford have manufactured micro porous media that is much finer than photo material for general inkjet use. This means that in combination with the Ultrachrome inks they can fine-tune both media and ink to a custom profile which they believe is second to none.
How it works
My workstation is my original computer system, with Photoshop installed and is connected via a network cable to the IBM print server provided by Ilford. The server has a large capacity hard drive for storing and handling the file transfer from my workstation and contains the all-important RIP software. The Epson 7600 printer is connected to the printer server via a USB cable.
Images are processed on the main computer and saved in the appropriate job file as normal, but instead of printing in the normal manner I apply an Action Command which applies any printing, sharpening, final adjustments or numbering and sends the image to the "watched" folder of the RIP software in the print server. The image is closed locally and I can continue working on the next image.
The Society of Photographers Convention and Trade Show at The Novotel London West, Hammersmith ...
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SWPP - Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers
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Tel 00 44 (0) 1745 356935
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