El Cheapo aquarelle paper from Action

[pharmacist]

For only €1.99 I bought this cheap textured and thick aqurelle paper from Action (a discount shop all around Europe). It has a nice grain texture and a weight of 300 gsm, so very thick but can be easily printed in my Epson SC-P900 with very good results.....That is: I had to increase ink usage with +50% to obtain maximum depth/contrast.

I made a few prints on this picture and have a look at the texture and relatively good colour rendition. Shadows are printed very satisfactoryL

In the above picture you can see the leaves area has good contrast without being one unrecognizable black area that is associated with cheap papers, but this paper does a very nice job.

Above a reproduction of a picture of Hieronymus Bosch. The black border has a good contrast (setting: Brilliant Aquarelle paper, ink load: +50 %)

Above picture with a water colour image: good contrast and the print looks like it is made with genuine water colour, very nice indeed.

 

[AmaDeuSbg]

Those look amazing. I have been following your journey with the P900, glad you make it work so good with refill

 

[Lothman]

Hi Nelson,
did you profile it with already the +50% ink load setting? and did you have any problems with your printed target with all those tiny fields in combination with that heavy texture?

Thanks for point us to this paper source. In the past I used some other Aquarell-papers (never dived deep in the printer settings like you did) but the lack of deep blacks left me somehow disappointed. I will give this a try

Edit: Did you find this paper in bigger than A4?

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Lothar,

yes the profile is made with the +50% ink load, if not the contrast is suboptimal. So take care when making the profile the extra load in included. Due to the structure of the paper you must use 400 patch target when using the i1Pro2. I have made these profile using the Colormunki/i1Studio with the 50 + 2x 50 (black and white neutralising profile). Setting the paper setting to something like Water Color Radiant White or other thick paper setting will do the job and increase inkload with +50%: this is necessary for maximum obtainable black, otherwise it will be a dark gray.

Action unfortunately does not have larger than A4 (the only option).

 

[Lothman]

I visited the Action shop near my home and this paper was sold out . But I want to try your trick with the Cancon Montval 300g fine texture aquarelle paper (more expensive but available in all sizes over the years).

Where in the settings did you change to 50% more ink usage? Did you mean the paper configuration options (see screenshot from the manual)?

Edit: found a better description (b) of the color density description from Red River Paper