Photography News Issue 43

Photography News | Issue 43 | absolutephoto.com

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AwardWinner - First tests

HahnemühleWilliam Turner 310gsm£64.25

Specs

Price £64 25 sheets A3, £2.56 a sheet. Other sizes: £39 25 sheets A4, £126 25 sheets A2, £82 25 sheets A3+ Paper type 100% cotton, mould made Availability A4, A3, A3+, A2, 17in, 24in, 36in, 44in Thickness 0.62mm Acid free Yes Weight 310gsm Contact hahnemuehle.com

Having the choice of so many fabulous finishes is just one of the many attractions of inkjet printing. This is especially true with art textured surfaces, such as the multi award-winning Hahnemühle William Turner 310gsm. This material has won PN ’s Inkjet Media: Fine Art Finish Award for the second year running, which shows how popular this material is Hahnemühle has a rich and very long history in paper making, the business being founded in 1584, and William Turner is just one of many matt finishes in its Fine Art InkJet Media collection. It is a textured, watercolour surface, available in 190gsm and 310gsm weights, that’s ideal when you want to give your pictures an individual look and feel. It’ll suit subjects of all types but probably better with images that rely on midtones and highlights rather than heavy shadows. Of course, that’s a matter of opinion and if your shots rely on lots of deep tones, there is no reason why they won’t look anything less than great on William Turner. In terms of reproduction it handles gently toned images as well as rich saturated ones and seems equally at home with bold primary colours as well as more delicate hues. For this look at William Turner I used an Epson SureColor SC- 600 printer. This popular A3+

printer features a nine-colour inkset including a Vivid Magenta to give a very wide colour gamut. My prints went through Photoshop using Hahnemühle’s generic profile for the paper downloaded from its website. The paper went through the printer with no problems such as headstrike or jamming. I tried landscapes, people shots and urban shots on William Turner and I must admit I liked the effect and its feel. It has a lovely tactile feel and its toothy texture adds to the paper’s charms. It’s true that a paper’s reproduction skills are key but feel is important too. I like a material that has a character and William Turner certainly does. WC

Verdict

William Turner is a luscious textured paper that suits a wide range of subject matter and gives a classy-looking result. Its textured, matt finish is straight of the top drawer and looks great with the right images.

In terms of reproduction it handles gently toned images as well as rich saturated ones

Pros Lovely textured finish, tactile feel, works well with mono and

colour images Cons Nothing

Left William Turner’s textured finish has a lovely feel.

Specs

Price £56.95 25 sheets A3, £2.28 a sheet. Other sizes: £27.95 25 sheets A4, £111.95 25 sheets A2, £74.95 25 sheets A3+ Paper type Silk/satin baryta Availability A4, A3, A3+, A2, 24in, 44in Thickness 0.31mm Acid free Yes Weight 315gsm Contact permajet.com

PermaJetFBGold Silk315 £56.95

Verdict

PermaJet has an impressive array of inkjet papers encompassing all tastes and needs in its range. FB Gold Silk 315 is one of its leading and most popular players for very good reason: it is a cracking inkjet paper that performs very nicely with colour and monochrome images. Highly recommended.

Winner of this year’s PN Award for Inkjet Media: Photographic Finish was PermaJet FB Gold Silk 315. It is a baryta paper having the weight, feel and finish of a traditional darkroom paper. Its base is a very subtle warm white tint but it is delicate and only noticeable with a direct comparison with a paper with a pure white base. A comparison with another PermaJet paper, Distinction with its very white base, shows this to good effect. The

no trace of any surface stipple as you would expect from a gloss finish, but the gloss here is a nice sheen rather than a traditional reflective gloss. In darkroom jargon it’s comparable to the surface finish of an air-dried glossy fibre paper but lies flat. The finish is appealing and has a practical benefit too. Having a silky sheen rather than an outright gloss prints still look great when mounted and framed behind glass in exhibition type lighting conditions. WC

characteristics of this material make it ideally suited to black & white images whether they are fully toned or high contrast. Whatever the image type, the paper excels, giving luscious but smoothmidtones with the former and deep blacks with the latter. You get lovely highlights in both. But to say that FB Gold Silk is a mono only paper would not be right because it handles colour images equally well. The paper’s finish is lovely. It’s completely smooth with

The paper excels, giving luscious but smooth midtones

Pros Smooth, sheen finish, weight Cons Nothing

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