May be of interest to printers.

[stray cat]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Les Walkling is somewhat of a printing and colour management legend, both in Australia and worldwide. I have had the good fortune to be an attendee at a couple of his workshops and he is enthusiastic and charming. I'd add that his online workshops are well worth considering if you want to go that step further in your at-home printing practice.

Here he talks about Canson's new Baryta Prestige II paper and delivers very compelling reasons as to why it might be your next go-to printing paper (it will certainly be mine):

 

[erudolph]

I’ve ordered some of this paper and discovered that Imageprint does not yet have a profile for it.  I’ve written to them.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[david strachan]

Just a side note Phil.

I see Epson have a new range of printers at good prices...and huge ink reservoirs. They look great value even though I battle on with my Epson 3000. Definitely on my futures list for the new models.

All best.

[stray cat]

Those bigger ink reservoirs are an enticing prospect, Dave. The downside of home printing is the expense, and the bigger tanks go a long way to alleviating one of the biggest culprits. Well worth considering.

The 3000 is a nice printer, too, BTW. We happily used an R2880 for many years.

Edited February 5, 2023 by stray cat

[Jeff S]

I bought a box a few weeks ago, based on another recommendation, but haven’t yet had a chance to experiment.  
 

Jeff

[erudolph]

A box of inks?

[Jeff S]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Comment directed at thread topic… Baryta Prestige II.

Jeff

[Stuart Richardson]

This is a very helpful video. I run my own exhibition printing studio, and I rarely find information that is nearly as helpful. A few years ago Epson Nordic visited Iceland and I was quite excited to finally be able to ask a bunch of questions I had about a number of the details of the printer, such as more subtle questions about ink density across driver settings, optimal settings for third party papers and so on, and the technical managers were basically like, "we have no idea...you are the only person who has ever asked us this. Most of the users are print houses that just set them up once and never change the settings ever again". It was extremely frustrating. I feel like Les would be someone I would love to talk to.

As for the video, I would be interested to try Baryta Prestige II. I had quite negative experiences with the first version. As he noted the handling was really challenging. I had to wind up throwing out the test roll they sent me after a certain point as it was so stiff and curly that I could not make prints at all towards the end of the roll, either in a P5000 or P9500. It was just automatic head strikes even with the platen gap at maximum. I was also put off by the extra bright white, in comparison to the Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta I have standardized on.

More recently I had a client who wanted to do a 200 print job on Platine Fiber Rag for a prepress proofing. The paper is quite nice looking and has much more favorable handling, but it still had a tragic flaw... The prints needed to be cut down and flattened, and upon cutting the paper it generates a lot of very fine dust, which is presumably the baryta layer (baryta is a clay and can flake like that). This dust would stick to the prints and it would be quite difficult to remove and very noticeable in the dark areas. If it was still on the paper by the time it was in the heat press, you would be in trouble. Overall, I think that Canson makes some nice looking papers, but they have always trended towards too many OBA's and too stiff alpha cellulose papers for me. It is heartening that they have made this paper a more neutral white with fewer OBA's and have let it be more cottony. That said, it will be very hard to pull me away from Photo Rag Baryta...I have yet to see a paper from any manufacturer that has better image quality, handling characteristics and archival stability...literally the only downside to it is the price. But in any case, I will ring my supplier and see if I can get a roll of Baryta Prestige II...it sounds excellent.

[stray cat]

On 2/5/2023 at 8:21 AM, erudolph said:

I’ve ordered some of this paper and discovered that Imageprint does not yet have a profile for it.  I’ve written to them.

 

9 hours ago, Jeff S said:

I bought a box a few weeks ago, based on another recommendation, but haven’t yet had a chance to experiment.  
 

Jeff

 

2 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

This is a very helpful video. I run my own exhibition printing studio, and I rarely find information that is nearly as helpful. A few years ago Epson Nordic visited Iceland and I was quite excited to finally be able to ask a bunch of questions I had about a number of the details of the printer, such as more subtle questions about ink density across driver settings, optimal settings for third party papers and so on, and the technical managers were basically like, "we have no idea...you are the only person who has ever asked us this. Most of the users are print houses that just set them up once and never change the settings ever again". It was extremely frustrating. I feel like Les would be someone I would love to talk to.

As for the video, I would be interested to try Baryta Prestige II. I had quite negative experiences with the first version. As he noted the handling was really challenging. I had to wind up throwing out the test roll they sent me after a certain point as it was so stiff and curly that I could not make prints at all towards the end of the roll, either in a P5000 or P9500. It was just automatic head strikes even with the platen gap at maximum. I was also put off by the extra bright white, in comparison to the Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta I have standardized on.

More recently I had a client who wanted to do a 200 print job on Platine Fiber Rag for a prepress proofing. The paper is quite nice looking and has much more favorable handling, but it still had a tragic flaw... The prints needed to be cut down and flattened, and upon cutting the paper it generates a lot of very fine dust, which is presumably the baryta layer (baryta is a clay and can flake like that). This dust would stick to the prints and it would be quite difficult to remove and very noticeable in the dark areas. If it was still on the paper by the time it was in the heat press, you would be in trouble. Overall, I think that Canson makes some nice looking papers, but they have always trended towards too many OBA's and too stiff alpha cellulose papers for me. It is heartening that they have made this paper a more neutral white with fewer OBA's and have let it be more cottony. That said, it will be very hard to pull me away from Photo Rag Baryta...I have yet to see a paper from any manufacturer that has better image quality, handling characteristics and archival stability...literally the only downside to it is the price. But in any case, I will ring my supplier and see if I can get a roll of Baryta Prestige II...it sounds excellent.

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses. Further to what I indicated above, my son and I have done workshops with Les, as well as visiting him in his studio. He is an extremely interested and generous person and I have no doubt that he would be just as keen to speak with anyone interested in this field as they would be to pick his brains. I am guessing he helped Canson with the development of Prestige II (he helped them develop Platine) but he has a vast knowledge of papers and all things colour management related. He'd also help with profiles, although I can't say whether or not he'd charge a fee for that.

In other words, I would advise contacting Les with any questions or discussion pertaining to colour management / printing processes as I'm sure he will engage with you generously.

Edited February 6, 2023 by stray cat

[erudolph]

Jeff, what do you intend to use for an Imageprint profile?  

[erudolph]

Never mind the above post.  In mailing to ColorByte, I’ve learned that profiles for this paper exist, only not for my printer, an Epson 3880, which is a printer they no longer have on hand.