This past summer I wrote twice about making notecards
Making Notecards in the Darkroom
Paper Scraps: More Notecards!
In both cases I used scrap photopaper and made them in the darkroom. They have
proved popular by recipients. I was contemplating making more and wanted
to look at a less labor-intensive method using Giclee or ink-jet printing. The
photopaper versions have been made on Ilford Art 300 paper which is a heavy
300 GSM 100% cotton rag paper from Hahnemuhle the German art paper maker. It has a pleasant coarse texture
like water color paper.
In the past I have made C-prints on Fuji papers but never ink-jet. Peak Imaging my go-to film developer and print maker does make ink-jet prints
and exclusively on Hahnemuhle ink-jet papers. So I decided to dip my toe into this world. I
ended up selecting 4 different papers to see what they were like.
- Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308gsm
- Hahnemuhle William Turner 310gsm
- Hahnemuhle Bamboo 290gsm
- Hahnemuhle Photo Lustre 260gsm
They are probably all fine papers for printing photographs but in this
application I was concerned with how it feels and how easy the paper would be able to
write on. The smallest paper size Peak Imaging offers is 8x12” which fit
my purpose perfectly. The cost is about £4.90 for each sheet. My first photo paper versions were 4x4 folded from 4x8
and 4x6 folded from 8x6. These fit perfectly with 2 4x6 cards or 3 4x4 cards
to a sheet.
I went to photoshop and made two different versions of the cards and then
produced a JPEG file. Since each was going to be printed on a different type
of paper I added text to each sheet indicating each paper type so I could know
which was which when I got it back. I also made small marks to indicate where to cut the paper to separate the cards.
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Example Photoshop Image for Final Card Print (4"x4")
(Hahnemuhle William Turner 310gsm) |
I placed the order and sent off the the files and the prints came back about a
week later. The results were more or less what I expected for this part
of the exercise. The images were quite dark so that would need some
adjustment.
My primary interest was to assess the paper textures and the answers really
boil down to two choices. The easiest to eliminate was the Photo Lustre as it
is a very slick glossy paper which feels like plastic and is difficult to write on as a result. The William Turner
which is a 100% cotton rag paper was much coarser than the Art 300 paper and
for me too coarse in terms of how it feels though it is easy to write on. That
leaves the Photo Rag and Bamboo as good choices. They both feel like paper and
the difference is the bamboo is slightly warm while the Photo Rag is a more
neutral white.
Below I have tried to give an impression of the different paper stocks, color
and texture. I have labeled each according to the paper type. It is difficult
to get the color correct. This was taken with a compact fluorescent light with
a warm color temperature. I set the white point balance for each image on the
Photo Rag paper as it seems most neutral white.
All the papers were easy to write on except the Photo Lustre that does not work
with pencil.
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| Notecards 4x4 (left) 4x6 (all others) |
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| Paper from another angle |
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| Grazing light to show texture |
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| Writing tests pencil(HB2) and ballpoint pen |
The next experiment will be to vary the image brightness to dial that in a
little better.
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