Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Julian 
Thomas" <julianthomas@t...> wrote:
> Bernd, how are your tests with the forte paper going?
> 
> Julian

Holla Julian,

you may know that I bought the Forte Paper at Silverprint in GB,
50 sheets of A3 cost about 40 GBP which is a bit more than 
Epson AM (which is about 33 GBP) but far less than Photo Rag, 
( which is about 80 GBP).  So I thought it could be a good 
bargain, if it would print as fine as PR does.

Well I have no optical devices to measure any dmaxxes, and I 
have no special profiles for this paper, neither for PiezoBW nor 
for the IP5 RIP, so any comparisonns should be a bit 
non-objective, if not distorted.

If I compare the threee mentioned papers, Forte matt is the 
brightest of all - though not bluish as some very bright papers 
are.
The surface is very smoth, like EAM. The back side has not that 
shabby kind of yellow as EAM has, but it is not quite as white as 
the print side ( - and there is no brand printed on the back). 
The overall haptic feeling of the paper is much better than EAM - 
but not as vivid as Photo Rag. Same holds for print quality:
it prints quite nice, though not quite as vivid (deep...rich...) as PR 
does if you use the EAM profile for IP5 printing .
So my impression is, it is a quite good proofing paper, and you 
can even give it away as a print sample without evoking any 
feelings of a cheap kind of work.
However, for "Fine Art Prints" I would stay with Photo Rag.

If you are interested,  I´ll send you some print samples, 
would be interesting how it behaves in the Barcelonian sun.

Best
Bernd