How good is your Paper ?

[The Hat]

I just happened to replace a photo that fell off the wall in my den, it didn’t need replacing but it was something to print so I went ahead and did it.

Then when comparing them both, there was some fading but nothing that I could complain about, but what I did notice was this photo happened to be printed on some Epson glossy photo paper and it had gone quite creamy like yellowish.

I also have HP and Canon photo paper on the same wall and they too has gone yellowish but they are on the wall buck naked where as the Epson photo paper was in a sealed frame.

We are all worried about the dye ink fading but there is hardly a mention given about the paper taking early retirement too, and I reckon it could be somewhat responsible for the longevity of the dye inks.

The photos worst effected by fading are all on Matte photo paper, (No brand) I mean very bad, but photos on a plain copy paper are as good as new, (Dog eared and curled) all done with OEM inks.

I have some Epson Premium glossy Photo paper that I got many years ago, (Ten plus) and it’s as white as the day I got it, I know this because it still has the label on the back when I got it as a sample with a printer, and I still have one sheet left in a cellophane wrapper to compare it with.

The cheapest paper I used was obviously the copy paper but the other photo papers were not cheap, I don’t buy any more printer brand papers now and just use Sihl paper from Lidl, cheap and cheerful but still good quality, go figure..

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

How good is your paper ? - I don't know, but you are raising a very important question. Some work in this direction had been done by the Wilhelm Institute. There are various factors - optical brighteners will fade as well - not just the inks - and are reported to turn into a yellowish tone. The glue/resin holding the coating on the paper may age as well, getting dry and cracking, and the paper itself will age as well like in books, paperbacks etc. And the better paper suppliers have some museum quality material in their offerings to reduce some of these risks and to keep the level of those changes on a low level. When considering the technical aspects what makes a good print the choice of the right paper is as relevant as the other aspects like inks, printer/resolution etc . It's a definite problem for the user, there are no quality marks, signs, ratings whatsoever available by which you could select photo papers in this respect.

 

[zing]

That's a really great question. I have a real mixture of papers with most of it being printer brand papers Epson Canon and HP and a few from Red River.

My plan now is to use up what I have on hand and then pick one or maybe two brands and stick with them in an effort towards consistency.

I can offer this from my experience today and that is don't buy photo paper from individuals on Ebay. I don't mean this as a rant against Ebay.

Someone sent me 13 x 19 canon paper that had been dropped right on the corner giving the photo paper a good crunch and bend. Someone had actually opened the corner of the retail packaging to view the damage before it was packed and shipped.

The shipping box was intact but the corner on the retail packaging was peeled back a bit and the protective plastic opened.

Ouch Lesson learned. Adorama or Ultrafine would never do that.

Years ago, I used to get ilford paper for my son when he was doing prints in a darkroom.

I've been thinking about trying some of their photo printer paper. The Ilford paper made absolutely beautiful photo enlargements done old school in B & W

Bill

 

[RogerB]

The test methodology used by Aardenberg Imaging definitely takes account of the changes in paper colour. For those not familiar with their method they give two values of "Conservation Display Rating" - the Lower CDR is reached when the change in the three weakest colours reaches the critical amount and the Higher CDR is reached when the average change in all colours reaches the limit. For a very stable paper and ink set the Lower and Upper values are very close. For papers with lots of OBAs they can be very different. For example, for the the R1800 on Epson Premium Presentation Paper Matte, the Lower CDR is 14 and the Upper CDR is 151 megalux hours! Here's an extract from the report:-

"The practical outcome is that R1800 prints made with the OEM ink set on Premium Presentation Paper Matte
will show paper “yellowing” in the image white and margin areas of the print at under 20 megalux hours of light exposure, whereas the average colors in the image will hold up very well on average over much higher exposure doses."

Of course this is just light fading. Physical degradation of RC papers can be a different problem altogether.