luxBorealis Blog

April Storm, Yorkshire Dales

In my final push to have some large, matted photographs for sale on Saturday** (see below), I started printing with the Moab Entrada Rag Natural 300 paper today. As I said in the title: Absolutely Gorgeous!

Entrada is a 100% cotton rag paper with no optical brightening agents (OBAs), hence the “natural” designation – the “bright version has brighteners. The 300 refers to its weight – 300 grams per square metre or gsm. A 190gsm version is available, but I prefer the heavier weight.

The first thing I noticed upon opening the package was the smell. It smells like a high quality, natural paper. The same pure smell as when I’m cutting mats. Sounds strange, doesn’t it, but smell is as evocative as sight and taste. (No doubt, someone will email to tell me the smell is actually a by-product of the manufacturing process and not the paper itself – I hope not!)

The paper has a great feel to it as well; heavy enough for handling easily but not stiff. The texture is beautiful – a lovely wavy stipple as beautiful as any watercolour paper, which is what this paper is. It’s not pure white (thank goodness!) but has a warm creaminess to it. All of my photographs are of the great natural world around us, so it is fitting that the paper is not stark, “machine” white, but warm like the beautiful light I am most apt to be photographing in.

Printing with Moab Entrada requires Matte Black ink which meant the big switch-over from Photo Black. that went smoothly enough as soon as I hit print. I had previously changed the print setting sot reflect the Entrada paper, so the driver picked up on it and after 5 minutes or so, it was done. Yes, it means losing about 6mL of ink, but it’s done.

I was pleasantly surprised at how similar the Entrada Matte Black ink prints are to the ones printed on Galerie Gold Fibre Silk and Canson Platine Fibre Rag in that the colour profile maintained the identical colours. Although the dmax of the Entrada prints is not quite as great, there is beautiful pastel-look to the prints. Yes, they are still photographs, but they have a much more organic look to them, less “machine-like” and more natural – which is the whole intent of my photography. The Entrada prints benefitted from an increase of about 20 in Contrast and 0.1 to 0.2 in brightness (Lightroom settings).

I just checked the printer to find ink usage for the prints that ranged between 12×20- and 16×20 and found it ranged between 1.0 and 2.0mL – very respectable. The cost of the paper is reasonable as well – I paid $4.80 per sheet and needed just one or two test strips to verify colour balance and brightness.

One interesting feature of the Entrada 300 is that it is “double-sided”meaning it is coated on both sides for fine art printing. Bizarre, or so I thought, so emailed Moab and got this reply from Nick Therriault:

I can see how it can be perplexing from your traditional presentation [matted and framed], but being double sided gives you the flexibility to either present your work traditionally or in a portfolio and limited edition books.  Being double sided will allow you to double the amount of work in your portfolio in the same amount of space.  Now all we have to do is invent a double sided frame lol.  Anyhow the 290gsm Entrada is actually single sided and probably more cost effective for your use.

As it turns out, the 290gsm paper is just over a dollar cheaper on a per sheet basis and certainly worth considering, but it is only available in rolls which the Epson Pro 3880 cannot directly handle. Something worth considering, though, when I start printing panoramas.

I can see that I’m really gong to enjoy printing with this paper. I thought I would settle on Platine, but the organic beauty of the Entrada just might be what I settle for.

**By the way – I’ll be at Applewood United Church on Stanfield (south of the Quensway) in Mississauga on Saturday 1st October selling my wares. Drop by and have a look and a chat.

I love revelations. It’s so nice to read something refreshing and new; not about using yet more technology, but actually using less. Here’s a great article on black-and-white photography that should be read by anyone who is seriously thinking about improving their printing:

B&W Master Print by George DeWolfe on Luminous Landscape

From my perspective as a long-time black-and-white darkroom worker is that George DeWolfe’s article is about the best I’ve read since Ansel Adams’ series The Camera, The Negative and The Print (and if you haven’t read them yet – I mean really read and study them – then you simply must as they are the landmark black-and-white technical manuals).

While DeWolfe spends some time outlining the use of a $95 Photoshop plug-in he’s created, what is more important is his discussion around how we perceive photographs and how we, as printers, can achieve masterful prints: that is by learning to critically evaluate all the details of photograph and learning how to take what we see and enhance it to a point where we feel.

What I also learned is that what his PercepTool appears to do in Photoshop is similar to what I’m doing in Lightroom: look carefully at how it keeps the deep shadows and keeps the bright highlights, but opens the shadows between the two creating a brighter image with more three-dimensionality. In Lightroom we can boost the Blacks value higher than normal then open up those shadows with higher Fill Light values.

Lastly, what seems to really stand out in his work is his attention to detail – not just left-right, light-dark but his perception of three-dimensions by working on the relationship of foreground to background elements, things that reside in the shadows and things in the highlights. Most importantly, he spends time evaluating instead just reaching for another tool. He looks at his work critically to learn what doesn’t quite “feel right” about the image. Perhaps more than anything else, this is the key to producing great prints.

Thank you George!

Ink usage is always one of the first questions I get from photographers contemplating fine art printing. It’s understandable, really, since ink is one of the exorbitant but unavoidable costs.

The tool amount of ink I started with is 9 x 80mL = 640mL. According to the Usage Count accessed through the printer’s menus (don’t write to ask me how – read the manual, p99), I’ve used 28.4mL. I assume that includes the ink required for start-up. The most recent 12×16″ prints I’ve made (all on 13×19″ Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk)  have used between 1ml and 1.7mL (average of 1.325mL). What’s interesting is that a 12×16″ image area = 1.33 square feet. So my ink usage appears to be ±1ml per square foot.

In another study done by Red River Paper, they calculated about 7.7mL for 10-8x10s = 1.33ml per square foot. But of course, so much depends on what you are printing. So far, most of my photographs have been on the lighter, mistier side, so, no doubt, my ink usage is lower. I’ll check again after I’ve printed some of my rock portraits in my Platform portfolio.

Knowing how much ink is used, I can work out a rough estimate of cost. An 80mL ink tank is in the neighbourhood of $70 once HST is factored in. So each ml costs $1.14. The ink used in an average (so far) 12×16″ print comes out to be 1.325 x 1.14 = $1.51. Throw in the cost of the paper at $3.84/sheet and we’re looking at a total of $5.35.

But don;t be deceived by the low number!! Photography is rather like a fishing trip: while the fish may be free, when you add in the cost of the trip, you’re looking at 10s to 100s of dollars per pound! If you want fish – their cheaper at the local fish market. Although a print only “costs” $5.35, we’re forgetting all the equipment, travel and storage costs plus the time it takes to create, process and make the print. Then there’s the framing!! (BTW – if you are contemplating doing your own framing purchase a good Logan board-mounted mat cutter and save yourself a fortune in custom-sized mat windows – then be sure to use outside mat-dimernsions that fit into standard frames: 11×14, 16×20, etc – but that’s another story!)

That being said, it is helpful for printers to know exactly what they are in for with respect to costs. If you are contemplating fine art printing, this is food for thought.