Best black & white printing paper

[Nick De Marco]

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Now that I have shelled out for the Epson 2400, could anyone who uses this or something similar for B7W recommend the best printing paper for B&W prints. I have little experience if this, other than when I made a few prints at home on my Canon printer I found that Matt paper looks better with B&W than gloss.

 

Thanks

[Peyton Hoge]

I like Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl

[carstenw]

I have been using the Epson Premium SemiGloss, but have heard great things about various fine art Hahnemühle papers, and will try them next.

[George61d]

This is a good question. Up until a couple of months ago I was using various papers from Epson, Iford and permajet (oyster) and I was happy with the results.

 

I participated in several competitions where the judges were recommending the use of fibre based gloss papers as they are better able to hold the black inks than previous papers and currently are the closest thing to darkroom papers in terms of final print apperance.

 

I started to use the permajet FBG paper and the fotospeed DWFB platinum and I have to say that the results are excellent for B&W prints.

 

I have done some research and it seems that all the various brands of FBG papers all come from the same mill so it probably does not matter too much which one you choose.

 

Interestingly I have noted that since these papers have come into main stream use competition judges seem to be marking down prints that are not using them and during panel reviews they will comment on the good use of FBG papers.

[abrewer]

The word on the street is use Epson papers and inks with Epson printers for the most consistent, productive printing with their machines.

 

I like Museo Silver Rag, but you have to be careful with its thickness--I've had to hand-feed it through my HP printer on occasion to make a print.

 

Thanks.

 

Allan