Paper Brand Options

[jhc1]

I'll sincerely appreciate suggestions of optional, less expensive, paper brands for 11x14 & 13x19 high gloss and smooth white surfaces for the Canon i9900 printer. While I like results from Canon's Photo Pro papers, are there any others out there---Illford, etc.---that one can purchase in larger amounts (100+ sheets) that will achieve equal or better results? Thanks for your help!

[TurnerJon]

Try looking at www.redriverpaper.com. They have a sample pack of all the papers they carry, and you get your money back on first order. Any of the Polar line I highly recommend. The papers I currently use are: Polar Gloss, Polar Satin, Dourian Art ( pricey art matte but I love it), and River Linen. They carry many more papers in various weights but these are what I have settled on. Red River offers free profiles for the Canon i9900 for the top end papers and they work great. I also use third party ink from reinks.com, perfect color match with Canon inks. This is probably the easiest printer I've used to refill cartidges on.

[haefnerphoto]

I've had considerable experience printing with the 9900 (in fact, I have three of them).  For quite some time I'd been printing portfolios on Enhanced Matte using custom profiles with great success.  Over time I began to wonder if a paper existed that resembled the air dryed F surface finish of a traditional darkroom paper.  The Canon Pro gloss didn't feel like paper to me and if you were to pick up several sheets stacked together it squeaked!  I didn't like that either.  Finally I tried the Ilford Smooth Gloss and thought my dreams had been answered.  With the factory profiles I'm getting great prints that look like photographs (a look that matte surface papers didn't always have).  But there is a downside, it is anything but archival.  If the prints aren't dried a minimum of 12 hours before being placed into a portfolio (I'm an automotive advertising photographer and print books on a regular basis) a color shift mostly in subtle tonal gradations becomes very apparent.  Since I've only been using it for 3-4 months I can't comment on the continuing color stability.  Another paper I'm just starting to use is the Innova Fibagloss.  Now that I have a good profile I'm getting excellant color although for me the texture of the paper isn't quite what I'd call glossy or smooth.  The ability to print subtle gradations without banding is tremendous though.  Does anyone have long term experience with the Ilford Smooth Gloss?  I'd like to know how the color is holding up.  Thanks, Jim

[filip baraka]

Best advice is to get sample boxes from various manufacturers, Recently i tried Moab papers and kokopeli gloss outperformed photopro. (setup: os x, canon driver, paper selected was photo pro for both highest quality) I lived in ignorance and thinked that canon papers where best for canon printers and I was wrong! Also be warn with photopro, few months at wall, unprotected print end ups totaly out of color, archival: 0 points

kokopeli satin didnt turn right but i didnt have icc profiles and probably quality/ink was too high

entrada natural, entrada bright and matte are ok, altough i preffer results from epson2100(2200)

HTH