Photography News Issue 61

Photography News | Issue 61 | photographynews.co.uk

First tests

Hahnemühle PhotoRagMetallic From£55.30

Specs

Prices & availability 25 sheets of A4 £55.30, A3 £109.30, A3+ £139.30, A2 £213.70. Also available 17in, 24in, 44in, 50in rolls in 12m lengths. 17inx12m rolls costs £170.50 Surface High gloss metallic Media colour Natural white Whiteness 88% Water resistance Moderate OBA content None Acid free Yes Thickness 0.47mm Weight 340gsm Contact hahnemuehle.com

Above The shimmering look of Photo Rag Metallic works brilliantly with these autumnal silver birches where the intricate detail looks superb.

Above With a custom ICC profile, my standard test print looked nice and vibrant with a very healthy colour saturation.

Some colours looked larger than life, especially rich blues that came out looking very strong, and even subtle pinks and mauve came out well saturated. Looking through my test prints, and of course this is subjective, but I thought some subjects suited the material really, really well and some not at all. With most papers, you don’t get such an obvious dichotomy and so instantly too. But as I said it is very much a personal thing. One picture that worked really well was a colour landscape of silver birch trees (shown above), shot on a Fujifilm X-T2 with 55-200mm zoom. I love the intricate detail of the fine branches and I always thought it would look great printed out big. But prints of the scene I have made so far on other materials have not fulfilled my previsualisation. Until now. I thought Photo Rag Metallic did an awesome job, the paper’s shimmery finish gave me the look I wanted when I first saw the scene. The wispy finery of the birch branches looked perfect. Very pleasing. I was equally happy with another autumnal tree shot (yellow trees in the mist, shown here on the left) which looked really painterly and lovely. Less effective was a subtle monochrome image taken at London’s Tate Modern. It is a scene I know works well on fibre baryta materials but on this paper the highlights looked a trifle flat and the shadows lacked intensity. Mostly, though, I was delighted with how Hahnemühle’s latest arrival performed. It’s not a modest material and its bold colour reproduction needs to be used wisely and kept under control, but get it right and it’s happy days. WC

Few paper brands are held in such high esteem as Hahnemühle, a company that has been in the business for literally hundreds of years. So when a new paper is announced, it is worth paying attention. Launched last September is Photo Rag Metallic, a paper with a ‘silver- shimmering’ surface, as described by the publicity leaflet. Call me a cynic if you want but when I read such marketing puff my hackles rise, so when I unpacked the sample pack of A3 that arrived for testing I was ready to tear into the copywriter. But do you know what, Photo Rag Metallic does shimmer in a silvery way so fair play to Hahnemühle. Viewed obliquely, the metallic shimmer is very evident, and face on – and depending on the lighting – you get a lovely and not overpowering sheen. The base is a mix of cream, off

white and faint silver (grey!) – the data sheet does say this material is free of optical brightening agents. Its 340gsm weight gives the paper a lovely heft and if you like papers with a high haptic value or a great touch, this one has it. A generic ICC profile is available from the Hahnemühle website. I made my own ICC profiles (one colour and one mono) using a X-rite i1Studio for my Epson SC-P800 printer with Epson inks. Once that was done I was ready to print, using my usual test files that includes a mix of mono and colour images. Prints emerge touch dry out of the printer, but I left them for a while before evaluating them under a daylight-balanced LED lamp. First thing that stood out for me was that contrast was high but well controlled and saturation impressive.

The paper’s finish gave me the look I wanted when I first saw the scene

Verdict

Hahnemühle Photo Rag Metallic is not a cheap paper with a sheet of A3 working out at £4.37, so let’s make that clear. It’s also clear to me, and this is just my opinion, that it won’t suit every picture – or every photographer. But when the planets align, this is an amazing material. It is transformational and can give images a unique fine art look which other papers can’t match, so this is paper is well worth a try if ynt to give your pictures an extra special look. Pros Look, weight, image portrayal, rich saturation Cons Might not suit every subject or photographer

Above left This close-up of the paper’s surface gives you an idea of its textured, almost shiny surface. Above right A lovely painterly rendition of this autumnal scene by Photo Rag Metallic looks really pleasing.