Epson Ultra Premium Photo Paper Glossy Instructions

[W. Fisher]

Bought a 50 sheet pack of "Epson Ultra Premium Photo Paper Glossy" at local office supply since they had half-off sale (Norm. was $52 and now $26.). Need it to profile a printer and test out the new basICColor RGBbox or whatever it's called for profiling with an i1 PhotoPro 2 spectrometer.

However, the instructions are interesting reading them. Something I rarely do.

"If paper is curled, throw it away."

Also says "To allow 15 minutes drying time, and to not use a hair dryer."

Next is to "Put it under a piece of regular (typing?) paper facing up and see if it is wavy after 24 hours. If it is still wavy showing undried solvents, replace the cover sheet and let it sit for another 24 hours until the cover sheet is flat."

Seems like an excessive amount of drying time, no?

Also, "The colors may appear incorrect immediately after printing. It takes about 24 hours for the ink to set properly."

More odd is this packet of 50 sheets comes with a printer cleaning sheet with some sort of peel-off thing and you feed it through the printer. It's sort of small though, maybe 4x6 inches. Almost threw it away as it isn't mentioned on it until one reads the instructions.

W. Fisher

 

[The Hat]

@W.Fisher, there was one instruction they left out fortunately, itself destructs in 10 seconds..

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Oh well, that's pretty conservative recommendations overall, it appears almost that the paper is of the swellable type, and not a microporous fastdry RC coated material, but I wouldn't believe that actually, such papers are almost out. Colors are stable after a pretty short time actually, some minutes, it's more the hardness of the surface which may take some time longer when it comes to scratch resistance. Those cleaning sheets pick up some paper dust from the pickup roller which may start slipping when you mainly use paper/matte type paper. And overall - if drying takes very long and you see ink puddles on the paper - you should reduce the overall amount of ink, with different driver/paper/quality settings

 

[Roy Sletcher]

Was there a date on the package? Sounds almost like instructions from the 1990`s when everything was hi-tech and complicated.

rs

 

[mikling]

Bought a 50 sheet pack of "Epson Ultra Premium Photo Paper Glossy" at local office supply since they had half-off sale (Norm. was $52 and now $26.). Need it to profile a printer and test out the new basICColor RGBbox or whatever it's called for profiling with an i1 PhotoPro 2 spectrometer.

However, the instructions are interesting reading them. Something I rarely do.

"If paper is curled, throw it away."

Also says "To allow 15 minutes drying time, and to not use a hair dryer."

Next is to "Put it under a piece of regular (typing?) paper facing up and see if it is wavy after 24 hours. If it is still wavy showing undried solvents, replace the cover sheet and let it sit for another 24 hours until the cover sheet is flat."

Seems like an excessive amount of drying time, no?

Also, "The colors may appear incorrect immediately after printing. It takes about 24 hours for the ink to set properly."

More odd is this packet of 50 sheets comes with a printer cleaning sheet with some sort of peel-off thing and you feed it through the printer. It's sort of small though, maybe 4x6 inches. Almost threw it away as it isn't mentioned on it until one reads the instructions.

W. Fisher

If you're using a dye ink printer. Treasure this package. It is your ticket to semi archival prints. Before the advent of pigment ink printers, these papers were used to print photos that had some level of permanence. The swellable coating provides a level of ozone protection and the dye in encapsulated in the coating. Yes, they take long to dry but you will get the next best thing to pigment...without the brinzing and gloss differential issues etc. If you like high gloss....this is your ticket. One thing.....make sure that the print is covered over after drying and displayed. There is NO water resistance whatsoever! Be careful sneezing or shouting around it as well. I have a stash of the HP Premium Plus Glossy. These papers profile well because they are quite linear in their response.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

O.k., if it's one of these rare swellable papers then please directly take the prints away from the output bin of the printer and don't let any prints stack upon each other to prevent any harm to the surface

 

[W. Fisher]

This is a five year old thread, but I recently bought four new packages of "Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Matte Paper" (Picture of a B&W sailboat is on front of package, i.e. https://www.amazon.com/Epson-Premiu...622382468&sprefix=epson+matte+,aps,341&sr=8-8 ) and the instructions are the same about "Nn hair dryer" and "Allowing it to dry for 24 hours and under a blank sheet of typing paper."

Paper does seem cold after printing and wavy. Likely the ink is still saturating the paper fibers and doesn't lie so much on top surface. Does have UV brighteners though as it's easy to determine the proper ink side with a purple UV flashlight which make it glow a bit.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

It is typical for this type of paper that it does not have a barrier - a PE foil - between the coating and the paper base, this let the solvent migrate into the paper and cause the waviness, and you are right that it has a UV brightener in the coating - the paper spec lists a whiteness of 104 which is caused by the UV additives, papers w/o such brightener never have a whiteness beyond approx. 95 .