articles/Paper/prestige-page5
by Mike McNamee Published 01/06/2013
Galerie Smooth Gloss and Smooth Pearl
More twins with this pair except that they are even more alike with only a hundredth of a point difference in their average colour errors. Both are 310gsm with moderate amounts of OBAs (fluorescence around 4 units), each is a little cool (between 3 and 4 units blue). The gloss is quite high but not in the same league as the Smooth High Gloss which is similar to Cibachrome (in old money!). The Smooth Pearl has just a hint of a silk texture.
On colour audit both papers delivered bang on the average for all bespoke profiled media (2.94 and 2.95ΔEoo). The chroma and hue components of the error were very low, the bulk of the error lying in the lightness channels at -1.84 and -1.78 ΔL/w, ie close to 2% too dark. In layman's terms really clean, bright and accurate prints. The Dmax was high at 2.36 and metamerism was low at 1.36 and 1.41 which would deliver excellent (indeed impeccable!) monochrome prints.
The Smooth variants of the range all use a nanoporous coating technology and we did note slight discontinuities in the Granger Chart in the cyan-green and deep-blue portions of the gamut, although that was nothing to worry over. Both media exceeded the 1 million mark on gamut volume. The grey ramps were smooth and the range extended from 15 RGB points to 251 RGB points.
Overall then these two papers have a very slight edge over the Premium grades although they are so similar in performance, looks and price that differentiation is almost impossible. Given that, the extra weight of the Smooth variants might just edge the decision.
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