whats your favorite B&W printing paper

Tango

13 x 19 B&W printing

whats your favorite printing paper for B&W?
brand & type?
why is it? have you done head to head tests?

thanks for any help i can get from someone that has already wasted money on paper:D

btw, i have a canon pro9500 pigment printer. (but not actually used it yet)
& (i dont have anything B&W worthy to print yet) give me time:D

SavedByZero

Wow I haven't been in a color or B&W dark room in well over 20 years or sold chemicals and paper in 12 years. Thanks now I feel real old. :cry

rsi1986

I'm using Staples Photo Supreme double-sided matte. Best paper I've used, and looks great behind glass.

Tango

SavedByZero wrote:

Wow I haven't been in a color or B&W dark room in well over 20 years or sold chemicals and paper in 12 years. Thanks now I feel real old. :cry

you completely lost me....

Tango

rsi1986 wrote:

I'm using Staples Photo Supreme double-sided matte. Best paper I've used, and looks great behind glass.

why a double sided?

im torn between legion smooth white matte, moab 308, or arches smooth matte....

i wish they sold a varity pack with all brands:D

i have some canon photo rag already and plan to do some color printing in a week or so.

but for B&W ive read the smooth papers show depth better

swintonphoto

Epson enhanced matte paper is by far my favorite. Extremely archival. It is the paper my art professors swore by. Highest quality you will find. (Epson makes the best papers in my opinion)

Tango

maybe not many people have done head to head comparisions,this stuff aint cheap just to goof off with....im guessing all paper brands are great, but im just hoping someone has seen significant differences in one over the other....im meaning in the end result with b&w. so i guess the better question here is...does anyone prefer a specific type of paper for b&w? like smooth, ultra smooth, textured, gloss, whatever...etc...??

claudermilk

My favorite paper is Pictorico's Gallery Photo Gloss. It sounds like they are going through some rought times right now though.

Head-to-head testing can be done, you just need to grab sample packs of paper. I've tested the Pictorico and Ilford's stuff this way. I think most of the other companies offer some kind of sample packs as well.

anwmn1

Contact Sam. He does all of his own printing to a certain size and has messed around with a lot of papers and inks.

http://www.dgrin.com/member.php?u=303

Tango

anwmn1 wrote:

Contact Sam. He does all of his own printing to a certain size and has messed around with a lot of papers and inks.

http://www.dgrin.com/member.php?u=303

good idea, thanks

SavedByZero

AaronNelson wrote:

you completely lost me....

See that's how old I am.