Digital BW, The Print

I had ordered some of the Alise Natural in November...I ultimately returned it to Premier, due to the curl.  Atlex was really good about handling the return.  I had major head strike issues even though I was using a 4880 with the highest vacuum setting. Premier said they were aware of the curl and were dealing with it.  Yesterday, I spoke with Atlex...and they assured me that Premier had corrected the curl.  I cannot validate this, but I plan to order a bit again.

I concur with Paul Roark...after I sent back the Alise...I ordered a box of Red River Aurora Natural.  After a bit of extra profiling in QTR...I am getting very acceptable dmax.  I did have to add a more significant Black boost to my profile for the Aurora...but it appears to handle a good load of ink.  After first emerging from the printer, the maximum black looks a bit over inked, but upon drying...it is visually just as black as the Alise.  Of course this is not a scientific appraissal, but the Aurora prints are quite lovely...I would be proud to hang them in a show.  

Price is reasonable on the Aurora and it has the added benefit of being two sided.  It lays out dead flat.

I compared identical images of Alise and the Red River Aurora.  Both are nice...I cannot honestly say Alise is significantly nicer.  I would have to think twice about paying twice the price for Alise.  The differences are not all that great IMHO.  Perhaps for some images needing a wee bit more of that special something....but for a lot of images..I am not convinced that the chase for dmax is the holy grail.

I have to believe that a lot of the new papers are marketed with hype.  Alise has certainly not been immune to the hype about dmax.
Have you noticed how Epson Exhibition Fibre was hyped as the best baryta at an outrageous price.  It is now one of the lowest priced barytas...  Go figure???


Phil

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "ClaytonJ" <cj@...> wrote:
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> Hello Paul,
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> >One of the aspects of the Alise Museum-Natural that appears to appeal to both of us is the relatively low Lab B of the paper.  That is, it is a relatively neutral or "bright" natural paper as opposed to the usually more creamy look of non-OBA papers. 
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> Yes, I like that very much, but the main thing for me was the dmax.  Finding a non-OBA paper with dmax over 1.7 was a major big deal.  All the rest was icing on the cake.  
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> >Have you tried the Red River Aurora Natural?  It's even more neutral. It may have the lowest Lab B of any of the non-brightened papers.  
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> No, but I'll get some and test it.  My primary non-OBA paper has been Innova's Soft Textured Art with Dmax 1.62.  Very pretty paper (responds beautifully to K3) but is quite warm and thus more limited.  Aurora's 1.65 is good and a whiter paper would make it more universal.
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> > With QTR I'm getting a dmax of 1.65 with the Aurora, which is not spectacular, but good enough that only those on this list would notice the difference.
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> Maybe it should be classified as a disease <g>.  
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> After your previous post about PA papers I went back through my past test prints and realized I never tested the PA325.  The 1.70 dmax sounds real good so I ordered some.  Hopefully it won't have the curl that Alise has and will allow flake spotting.
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> Regards,
> Clayton
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> Info on black and white digital printing at    
> http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
> I-Trak 2.1   http://www.cjcom.net/itrak.htm
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