You offer great advice when you suggest that people ask not how the print looks as compared to what is seen on the screen versus but rather how it looks as a print. That's a great way to think about a print and a reason for NOT relying on a service to make prints.
I love Platinum Etching but you have to watch contrast. NST bright white is more of a challenge with grey skies will print like blue mud & yellow & orange will look desaturated. I also have platinum cotton but need to do further prints with that. great advice as always. Thanks Tim.
Tim, you posed the question "Why do matt prints look rubbish?", followed by your answer, "They don't!". I wholeheartedly agree. I only started ink jet printing my images recently and in my 40 plus years experience of wet printing, I am getting better matt ink jet prints than I did in the darkroom. I have been getting the rich deep blacks I could only dream of in the old days. In my case, I've been using Fotospeed NST Bright White paper and the only issue I've had, is that the overall tone, is somewhat warmer than on screen with b/w prints. Something that is not the case with the colour images I have printed on the same paper. In saying that, I have grown to love the warm effect and prefer it to original.
I Have been using smooth cotton 300 and love this paper , but it dose suit my type of Landscape photography as im looking for soft light look to my images , also Tim i have a question about printing ,on the canon professional print layout, the first setting it a paper setting do you set this or dose the paper profile further down the setting menu override this anyway ? i have been setting it anyway as near as possible . do you ignore this or use it as part of the printing process on the Canon professional print layout
Hi David, Sorry for the later reply, for Smooth Cotton i set the media type to either Matt Photo Paper or Heavy Weight Fine Art depending on your printer. The Paper setting will select the correct black ink to use. Hope that helps Tim
I find that Ilfors Heavyweight Duo Matte prints punchier (and with quite a shift to the red) on the Epson ET-2820 printer. Yeah I know it is not a "real" photo printer... (Some off brand matte double sided paper is even punchier, but that is really bright white and also bleaches quickly in snlight).
