Motherlode!

[shadowfox]

Yesterday I hit the jackpot, so to speak.
I saw a weird short ad on Craigslist saying that a guy has a bunch of inkjet papers for sale and he listed a couple of brand names.

Sounds legit to me, so I contacted him, agreed on a price and we met later. Little that I expected that I'd be going home with this:

* That's over 300 sheets of large format inkjet with names like Hahnemuhle Lumijet, Harman, Ilford Gallerie, Epson and HP, none of them are less than 200 gsm and most of them are Matte (my preferred compared to Glossy by far).  In English: Expensive stuff.

But wait, out of his trunk he also produced this:

* About 700 sheets in total of the same quality stuff in smaller sizes.

I blinked, picked up my jaw, pull out my wallet and handed him four twenty dollar bills (more than what we agreed before), told him many thanks, and we chat a bit about printing (he's also a victim of Epson printer's not so clever design of irreplaceable heads).

So I spent some time last night printing one of my pictures on a 310 gsm 8x10 Museum Parchment while learning Canon's way to front-feed heavy papers.

It's sublime.

[Philip]

Lucky man.  Good paper.

I'm still printing 4x6" on my Epson PictureMate.  After about four years with it, I keep telling myself I should get a bigger printer.  The Picture Mate has its own annoyance:  not being able to buy Epson ink without paper.  (I tried two different off-market ink cartridges but neither actually worked. Grr.) 

[br1078lum]

Nice haul there, Will.  That should last you a couple of days.

PF

[shadowfox]

Thanks, both Phil!

Several months is more like it.

What excites me the most is that now I can experiment with many different papers with that new Canon printer I got.  I was previously drooling reading the various paper specs but the sight of one single pack just gave me a brain knot most of the time.

These papers have ICC profiles for the Pixma 9500 Mark II. The difference is quite striking between using the profile and letting the printer select its own curves.

[Kalkadan]

Hey Will, just noticed this - congrats on the paper haul.

Can you enlighten me about this: "These papers have ICC profiles for the Pixma 9500 Mark II. The difference is quite striking between using the profile and letting the printer select its own curves" ?  Can you point me to a website which will explain ICC profiles and where to get them for various papers?

I have an Epson RX650 which prints up to A4 (it does not like 200 gsm paper - difficult to load - seems to have difficulty 'grabbing' it and drawing it down into the printer).  If anyone has any suggestions on that also I would be grateful.

Dan

[shadowfox]

Dan,

On the paper thickness issue, according to this specifications:
http://www.epson.com.au/products/multifunctional/stylusphotorx650_specs.asp
Your printer can handle up to 90gsm only.

An ICC profile is a set of numbers depicting graphic curves written in the computer language that is specific to each printer brand and model, that guides the printer on various matters including ink spread, drop size, half-tone algorithm to use, etc.

You can usually download one from the paper manufacturer's website, an example:
http://www.hahnemuehle.com/site/en/222/canon.html