Photography News Issue 55

Photography News | Issue 55 | photographynews.co.uk

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First tests

Hahnemühle Photo Gloss Baryta 320 From £29.80

Hahnemühle has won plenty of awards for its products over the years and its PhotoGloss Baryta 320 follows in the same tradition, scooping this year’s TIPA World Award for Best Photo Inkjet paper. Photo Gloss Baryta 320 is a high gloss, true baryta paper. Baryta is barium sulphate, a clay-like compound. On fibre-based darkroom printing papers baryta is used to provide a surface on the paper base for the emulsion coating and helps to produce a detailed image with an extended tonal range. With inkjet printing papers baryta’s job to give a smooth reflective coating and to make the most of the potential of black pigment inks. My test printer is an Epson SureColor SC-P800 and its UltraChrome HD pigment inkset is capable of impressive D-Max so, in theory, should show off this paper’s skills very nicely. Generic profiles are downloadable from the website so I downloaded the appropriate one for my printer/ ink combination, but also made my own using the X-Rite i1 Studio kit. I made profiles for colour and black & white output. Out of the box, this paper lies nicely flat with no corner curl so I had no issues with headstrike during the test. The finish is a lovely gloss, striking a good balance between a sheen and reflective high gloss. For those used to darkroom papers, it is more glossy than a typical air-dried glossy fibre print. I was rather taken by it although I appreciate it is not ideal for exhibition under spotlights because of its finish. On heavily inked prints, there’s no patchiness where there’s tonal change that you see on some gloss finishes. One thing to note; the paper’s data sheet does say the paper needs careful handling as the surface is prone to abrasion during normal handling, so once totally dry prints need mounting or stored in acetate sleeves as soon as possible. The base does use OBAs resulting in a pure white look with a slight warm, creamy feel. I printed a selection of colour and monochrome images including several of my standard test files, and I have to say that I was very impressed

Specs

Prices and availability 25 sheets of A4 £29.80, A3 £56.70, A3+ £72, A2 £111. Also available 17in, 24in, 44in, 50in rolls in 15m lengths Surface High gloss Media colour Bright white Whiteness 100% Water resistance Good OBA content Yes Acid free Yes Thickness 330 μ m Weight 320gsm Contact hahnemuehle.com

Images. Top This paper does a great job of moodymonochromes with strong blacks and shadows loadedwith detail. Above centre Photo Baryta 320 has a lovely gloss with a combination of sheen and pure gloss. Above left anddirectly above Photo Baryta 320 handles richly coloured shots really well; the warmth of this sunrise shot and the vividly processed street shot are nicely reproduced on this paper.

by the overall quality of the output. This was not just in terms of colour accuracy but also with the levels of vibrancy and saturation as well as the solidity of the blacks. Comparing the print, under daylight lamps, featuring the X-Rite ColorChecker test chart with the actual thing was very telling. The two appeared impressively similar in accuracy and saturation and that includes the potentially tricky colours such as the blues. No complaints here. On actual pictures, the paper’s ability to deliver punchy results was excellent. I have some street shots processed for a vivid look, and these looked great on this Hahnemühle paper with the gutsy look that I envisaged. I deliberately picked a few black & white scenes that were shadow heavy just to see how the paper handled it and thesewere reproducedverynicely too. On screen, plenty of shadowdetail mixed inwith areas of solid black is on view and the prints were exactly the same. There was no blocking up in the shadows, just lots of smooth gradation across the tonal range – and of course, no sign of bronzing either. Highlight detail didn’t fare poorly either and whites stayed white; where there was tone that was reproducedwell too. WC

The paper’s ability to deliver punchy results was excellent

Below Comparing the image featuring the X-Rite ColorChecker with the card itself revealed that the twowere impressively similar.

Verdict

There is no doubt in my mind that Hahnemühle’s Photo Gloss Baryta 320 is a very good paper indeed and if you want output on a lovely gloss material, you have simply got to try this one. Highly recommended. Pros Capable of powerful results, finish, great blacks, slightly warm base, lovely feel Cons Paper needs careful handling to avoid surface abrasion

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