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Permajet Titanium Gloss 300 metallic

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Review: Titanium Gloss 300 metallic paper

High gloss paper from Permajet



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A new paper from PermaJet in the UK that is aimed at images that want some extra punch in their presentation.

Keith has been trying it out on the Epson P5000 pigment ink based printer [P5000 detailed review]

How does the surface finish affect what images work with it?

PermaJet TiGl300 paper information

titanium gloss 300 metallic paper

Titanium Gloss 300

The paper is a fairly heavy resin coated style paper with a smooth glossy finish. Unlike some other metallic style papers it doesn’t have an obvious coloured sheen to it. The slight purplish reflected colour that some other papers show at some angles, is interesting, but of limited use for my type of printing.

The paper feels relatively thin despite its 300gsm weight. It’s thin enough that it should be mounted on a white backing when framing. It has some optical brightener (OBA).

Technical Information:
  • Weight – 300gsm
  • Thickness – 0.29mm
  • Whiteness – (CIE) 97
  • Coatings – Single-sided, metallic resin coated glossy base
  • Optical Brightening Agents (OBA) – Yes
Media Availability:
  • Sheets 6” x 4” 7” x 5” A4 A3 A3+ A2
  • Rolls 17”x30m 24”x30m 44”x30m 60”x30m

Testing the paper – profiling

I’m testing this paper alongside a more conventional OBA free pearl finish fibre style paper. First up I need to create icc printer profiles and see how they look when using the Epson ABW print mode for B&W printing.

The differences between the papers are quite obvious in this view of the prints under diffuse (northern) window light.

targets

The colour targets are 2938 patch ones I’ve created to fit on an A3+ sheet (13″ x 19″) and read with an X-Rite i1iSis. The black and white ones are of my specialist B&W printing test image. [free to download[

This picture gives a nice feel for the surface finish [click to enlarge images].

titanium gloss 300 metallic paper

I measure the patches with a spectrophotometer. I’ll take readings with and without UV illumination.

reading-patches-on-target-for-profiling

The measurements are used in i1Profiler to create my printer profile.

After the measurements I can check individual patches to see how they looked to the spectrophotometer, as opposed to what was printed. This is a very light grey.

near-white-glossy

The thing to notice is the slight red bump. This shows some of the effect of scanning with UV light present.

It’s quite a small bump which suggests that the amount of OBA in this paper is quite low. if you look at some bright white matte papers, the bump is huge – these are the papers that really light up when you shine a violet/blue laser at them.

The profile takes a few minutes to create with this number of patches. It’s rather more than are used for most custom profiles you’ll find.

The shape of the profile is always worth a quick look. Holes of bumps in the shape can indicate measurement errors or other problems. This one looks fine.

glossy-profile-shape

Black and white tests

The black and white test print has a lot of features that allow for a quick visual check of print performance. One small part of the image is a test strip. I’m using the simpler 21 step (5%) greyscale from black to paper white. There is a 51 step (2%) version available for more precise uses.

The print is made using the Epson ABW print mode and the Epson PGPP 250 media setting

print-BW-target

I’ve placed it at the top of a sheet, to give space for another version printed with any adjustments/curves I might feel are needed.

I’ll measure the test strip with an i1Pro2 spectrophotometer and i1iO automated measuring table, but as I showed recently, you can use a flatbed scanner for quick tests. [B&W print fine tuning with a scanner]

There’s more about this measurement process in an article describing the use of the grey step wedge with the latest i1Pro3 spectrophotometer and one with the i1iO.

i1i0_1

You could just make the measurements by hand…

i1i0 scanning

The i1Pro2 gives me three versions of measurements with and without UV

gloss-bw-scan

In particular, if I select spot measurement, i1Profiler lets me average multiple measurements – good for less even surfaces.

Ignore the brownish tinge in the strip above – this seems to be a minor bug in i1Profiler somewhere

Here’s the reading for the paper (note the OBA bump)

glossy-bw-paper-white

Here’s the 100% black patch.

glossy-bw-black

Click to enlarge if you want to see the readings. If you’re interested in such stuff, the DMax is 2.51

B&W linearity curves

Exporting the data, I can run it through QTR (see the articles mentioned above for details).

I get three curves, which I can use to see if the print output I’m getting is suitably linear.

gloss-M0

M0 and M1 are measurements taken with some UV present (as in daylight). With the OBA present, you get the typical ‘b’ curve heading off to the left as less ink covers up the response of the paper.

gloss-M1

M2 is what used to be called UV Cut and has no UV.

gloss-UV-cut

However, what i’m really interested in is how straight the line of ‘L’ values is.

By the standards of many papers, this isn’t bad. There is a bit of a jump from 100% black to 95% black, which is the opposite of the usual crunching of shadows you see with quite a few papers.

And this means…?

I’m happy to print my B&W images straight, using the ABW print mode, with no concerns about print linearity.

Of course, the real test comes from looking at some photos once I’ve printed my test images (I have a colour one too)

Some prints

Looking at the profiling target, it’s clear that under bright lighting the printed areas do show a degree of translucency, with just the slightest diffuse flare to give a metallic feel to some of the coloured patches.

The deep sunset colours here are well rendered, but until the print was looked at in daylight, didn’t really show strongly

sunset-print

The model car photo has metallic paint and works well.

car

This photo and the next two are from my three part review article all about focus stacking

disk-drive

The grey metal of the (broken) disk drive really does look good on this paper, with the paper adding to the illusion of reflective metal.

The subtle colours on the pen nib also look good printed on this paper.

pen-nib

Here are a couple of the prints in daylight – you can see the slight reflection of the conservatory roof.

disk-drive-print

A detail of the print showing the paper surface.

print-detail

The pen nib with micro chips.

pen-nib-print

The surface texture is clear in these two oblique shots – the first showing how different the texture is to a lustre/pearl finish and the second how there is not a lot of gloss differential with a pigment ink,

gloss-colour-surfacegloss-bw-surface

Black and White

I’m less sure about what sorts of monochrome image will work well the paper. This shot of the Chapter House ceiling at Wells Cathedral has some crisp detail and ton that work well, but as to whether I prefer it to prints I’ve done on a smooth surface matt art paper, I’m not so sure.

chapter-house-printing

Once again I’ve photographed the print in bright light to try and show some of the way the print looks under different lighting angles.

chapter-house-print

Here are some of the test prints with a flat diffuse window light.

pictures

Thoughts on the paper

A much more usable ‘metallic’ finish that’s without the more obvious ‘pink halo’ effect I’ve seen on some others. Rather a lot depends on the kind of images you want to print and how the prints are lit. This is one of those paper that may sit in my print room for a while, but when I do find an image that works with it, it will be exactly what I want.

It has modest amounts of OBA, which isn’t a problem for most of my printing – after all it’s what helps give prints and extra bit of luminosity.

In large sheets it’s thin enough that you need to take care not to create ‘krinks’ when picking it up – not a problem with A2, but I’d take care when handling prints from a 44″ roll and a lot of care at 60″.

The metallic effect is difficult to describe and photograph, so if you’re interested, contact PermaJet and I’m sure they’ll be happy to send a print sample.

Out comes the microscope

Whilst camera resolution is limited, my USB microscope shows that part of the ‘metallic’ look is causes by tiny reflective crystals in the paper (mica?)

These two shots show parts of the profiling target, with shots of the microscope for scale.

paper-shot

The camera outputs JPEG files with no colour profile and the lights are basic ‘white’ LEDs so don’t read too much into precise colouration.

paper-whitecyan-yellow-shotyellow-cyan

The reflections showing through the coloured dots show why lighter colours give a better metallic sheen.

>> Paper information from PermaJet

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