T
he rise of digital has all but killed off the traditional silver halide print as a common means of expression. Despite this, those in the know talk longingly about the very tangible and tactile properties of fibre-based air-dried silver halide papers of yore! Now being a hoarder I still have some of these papers and got them out to do some comparative measurements. While they are nice enough, I would not go back to them; the modern digital coating and inkjet printers outperform silver halide on all but metamerism properties. The older prints look quite grainy even from well-developed, medium-format film of modest ISO rating. They also last longer, have higher Dmax and don’t smell the house out while you make them!
The spectrum charts are revealing for although the old silver halide material has a higher OBA activity, it is significantly less bright in visual terms and behind on the Whiteness, Brightness and Luminance values. The statistics show a greater difference than you might suppose from looking at the prints in the viewing booth although the Fluoresence values match what the eye sees.
This, then, is the background to PermaJet’s latest addition to their family. The key parameters are: 1. High gloss with just a hint of air-dried fibre-base texture to keep the surface interesting. 2. Moderate brightness while remaining close to neutral (despite the purists spurning OBAs, Ilford Galerie and MultiGrade Fibre Base contained them). 3. High Dmax for great shadow depth. 4. Good solid print weight and feel of the media. We found all these boxes ticked and then some! It is the glossiest of the barytas we have seen, a deliberate choice made by PermaJet after consultation with users. It does not, however, stray into the mirror-like, plastic look that was typical of CibaChrome and so vulnerable to every mark and scratch. As a bonus the paper delivers first-rate colour as well – a good ink receptor surface is indifferent to the actual colour of the ink droplets being fired at it!
Base Properties The base media is a 335 micro caliper, 320gsm alpha cellulose with a true baryta coating. It is being made available in A4, A3. A3+, A2 sheets and then 17”, 24” and 44” rolls (on a 15m run and jumbo core). In hand the print is quite stiff and we used the fine art feed on our Epson 4900.
Mono Print Testing In view of the paper’s intended use we went directly to monochrome printing using the Epson Advanced Black and White driver. We tested using premium SemiGloss Photo Paper as the media setting, Neutral for tone and both Darker and Darker for the tone density settings. Both settings delivered clean bright prints with the following statistics.
Paper Whiteness
Whiteness
Tint
Fluorescence
Brightness
Opacity
The media whiteness parameters are tabled. We also compared the new media with an FB silver halide print (probably Ilford FB Multi Grade of 1995 vintage).
L
a
b
Old Halide
94.1
-1.04
11.8
91.8
99.0%
96.6
0.96
-0.26
Pjet FB Mono
103.1
0.47
8.5
102
99.0%
99.1
0.36
-2.75
Halide v FBB320 whites and SPD.xlsx ABW Settings and Results Lab Readings
Setting L Base White Spectral Characteristics
Old FB Halide FB Mono 320
1.2
Reflectance %
1
Dmax
CII
Dark
55.4%
-0.9
-2.2
2.40
2.94
Darker
50.5%
-0.08
-3.12
2.49
2.19
The Lab values are close to neutral, just a couple of points cool to match the base white point. The Dmax was very high which was evidenced by the great depth to the prints. The prints retained their high gloss and we did not detect any gloss differential. Metamerism was quite low and within the range we expect from the Epson K3 HDR ink set.
0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6
b
The colormetrically accurate setting would thus be made using a Darker setting although each printer would most likely choose a preference of visual assessment.
1.1
This new paper from PermaJet has been formulated to tick all the boxes for the fine art monochrome worker. Traditionally they have been a fussy lot, so making them a paper all of their own is bound to be a challenge!
a
380
480
580
680
PAPERCHASE: Part 60
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Wave length nm
Statistics
ΔC/w
ΔH/w
All 216
1.78
1.81
0.38
0.57
-0.17
Fogra V3
2.22
2.24
1.27
1.08
0.01
CC 24
1.48
1.20
0.17
-0.12
-0.59
HiGAM
1.89
1.25
-0.88
-0.17
-0.58
Skin Tones
1.41
1.33
-0.28
-0.81
-1.07
Greys
2.14
2.11
0.22
1.85
-0.29
Chroma Error Macbeth CC Patches
BEST
3
MMcN4900_PJetTrialMono_PSGPPQual_727_Bigset2017_SDA.xlsx CII
Gamut Volume
2.38
1.67
1,047,446
109.4
0.25
8.4
2
PROFESSIONAL
PAPER
1
L
a
b
101.5
99.04
0.36
-2.71
Lab b
Dmax
Brightness
-3
HiGamut Colour Test
0 -2
-1
0
1
2
3
-1
-2
150 -3
Lab a
100
50
Lab b
HiGamRef HiGam Print -100
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
0
20
40
60
80
100
-50
Overall
Lab a
2
0
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dL*/w dC'/w
-2
-3
-4
-5
114
HiGAM Weighted Errors
1
-1
This paper has just the right amount of everything. The OBA levels are enough to produce a bright, sparky print with plenty of ‘pop’ but without depressing the reds and compromising the skin tones. The monochrome performance ticks all the boxes with low metamerism and high Dmax. The prints themselves have a suitably luxurious weight and stiffness to them – looks like PermaJet have come up with a winner here!
With a subtle lustre surface and an instant-dry resin coating, Oyster 271 is the one for photographers looking for a consistently professional quality.
-100
ABOVE: A proof of our featured shot this month required very high detail retention because of the importance of the text in the image to the narrative. It was exceptionally crisp. The depth of the blue in the sky also stood out and the red tie was just as we had planned it. Overall the print had tons of sparkle. RIGHT: The high gamut volume has pushed the saturated HiGAM patch set right out onto the aim values. In the lower graph the weighted saturation errors (dC’/w) are the lowest of the set.
ABOVE: We have chosen to highlight the errors in the chroma (saturation) component of the Macbeth patches simply because they are unusually good. The chart is normally set on ±10 Lab points but the errors around the gamut are so small that the chart can be comfortably fitted at ±3 Lab points. The errors are shown around the colour wheel on an Lab plot – yellow at the top, progressing clockwise through orange, red, magenta, blue, cyan and then green. Overall the data indicate the good gamut coverage of the Epson HDR K3 ink set and the ability of the baryta coating to ‘hold’ on to the saturation without distortion.
Voted as the Best Professional Paper for three out of five years by The Societies of Photographers, this award winning inkjet media is a versatile and rewarding choice.
dH'/w
"This paper has just the right amount of everything." To get your hands on this award-winning paper please call 01789 739200 or visit www.permajet.com
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For all practical purposes the statistics can be considered flawless and the paper could be used for really high-quality colour work. Indeed if (unusually) you wished to present a qualification panel in mixed mono and colour (it has been done now and again) then the use of this one paper would produce an even gloss and polish across the panel with no compromises needed.
ΔL/w
Fluorescence
We could not resist doing our normal colour testing, especially as this media provides the glossiest alternative around for print work on barytas. We profiled using a 727-patch target in i1Profiler using Premium SemiGloss Photo Paper as the media setting. The data are tabled and show high colour performance. The slightly cool white point has depressed the colour range slightly towards blue but only by a small amount and accurate skin tones were recorded. In keeping with the high gamut volume, the HiGAM colour patch set was well reproduced with a loss of only 2/10ths of a point on saturation statistic.
MEDIAN
Tint
Colour Printing
Avg ΔE00
Whiteness
The prints looked close to neutral with just a hint of coolness but the toning ringaround tests showed that any of the tint bias setting would look good; it’s very much a matter of personal taste. We still prefer the slightly magenta bias which mimics that obtained from intense selenium toning of a silver halide print – between 20 and 30 points on the ABW vertical scale should do the trick.
Weighted Component Errors
Patch Set