All About Inkjet Paper

In today's market, there are many and varied inkjet papers available, ranging from cheap and nasty through to very expensive and exquisite. This page aims to explain some of the key issues to consider when selecting the right inkjet paper for your images.

Jump To:

Fibre Based Versus Resin Coated

The fundamental schism in the photographic paper world is between fibre based papers (dearly beloved of darkroom aficionados and fine art practioners) and resin coated (popular in the commercial domains).

Inkjet paper has two key components - a substrate layer (the paper itself) and an ink receptive coating.

Resin Coated Inkjet Papers are the papers most people regard as 'photographic' because they're the sorts of places your typical mini-lab use - these papers are made using a layer of (usually low grade) wood pulp, over which a player of plastic is placed (usually polyethylene). This forms a barrier between the paper substrate and the ink receptive coating that is placed on top to the plastic (resin) layer. This use of a plastic layer makes for a very commercial, ultra smooth appearance. It tends to strip the final print of any of the paper's original character. Sometimes this clinical, commercial look has benefits, but very often it can make for a lifeless print.

Fibre Based Inkjet Papers are made of a substrate (usually cotton rag fibres or high grade wood pulp, see below) upon which an ink receptive coating is directly placed. This means the character of the underlying paper tends to show through the ink receptive layer, making for a final print where the character of the paper adds to the expressive qualities of the print. Further, because the ink receptive layer and paper substrate are in direct contact, these papers can typically accept a higher ink load, meaning stronger blacks and greater colour saturation can be achieved.

Baryta is a word you'll often hear with respect to fibre based papers - this was a layer used in traditional silver gelatin darkroom papers between the paper base and the light receptive coating. This is, for many, the holy grail of paper - these papers had a unique look and feel that many regard as the pinnacle of photographic expression. Recent inkjet papers (see fibre based alternatives, below) have come very close to this appearance.

About Substrates

Inkjet paper substrates can be broadly divided into three main types, and some papers are made from a mixture of types. Basically, the more cotton a paper has in it, the stronger it is. Cheaper papers are made from wood pulp. Plastic 'papers' are an emerging alternative, and are appearing in high gloss papers coming to market at this time.

Cotton Rag papers are made, literally, from the remains of cotton rags. Cotton has long, strong fibres, and consequently papers made from cotton are very strong. These papers are expensive, but the ultimate in quality. Being so strong, and naturally acid and lignin free, they are considered the most archival of papers, making them the most suitable for work in the gallery/museum, and sales context.

Wood Pulp papers are the lower quality, weaker papers (most Epson papers are wood pulp papers). The wood pulp fibers are shorter and less strong than cotton fibres, so this paper tears and degrades more easily. Wood pulp papers are not generally considered to be archival (for example, in the U.S. the paper Epson Archival Matte must be sold as Epson Enhanced Matte as it is not archival by Library of Congress standards). If using a wood pulp paper, look for one that is 100% alpha cellulose wood pulp - i.e. the highest quality pulp. Wood pulp papers can be ok for proofing, but should probably be avoided in the gallery/museum and sales markets.

Plastics are also used in some 'papers' as the paper base. Older processes like Cibachrome and more modern papers like Kodak Endura Metallic use a 'paper' that has a polyester base - so they are not really a paper at all, really a plastic. Plastics can be manufactured to be extremely smooth, making plastic based papers very suitable to the construction of super high gloss papers. Currently on the Australian Market there is no paper quite like this available for inkjet printing, but some are due to appear shortly - stay tuned!

About Surfaces

There is no real right and wrong with paper surfaces, and almost all surface types can produce excellent results. It really comes down to the image your are printing and the look you want to achieve.

Gloss Papers have very smooth, highly reflective surfaces (that are prone to scratching). Inherently, they offer the punchiest images due to their extremely strong blacks. They can be difficult to frame, however, due to need for them to be held perfectly flat and also due to reflection issues when behind glass. With inkjet printers, particularly pigment ink printers, you will sometimes experience 'bronzing' and 'gloss differential. See the FAQ for more details - this can be minimised by using a quality surface coating. Canson PhotoGloss is an excellent high gloss paper compatible with both dyes and pigments.

Semi-Gloss Papers have a moderately reflective texture but are very robust and stand up well to handling. They offer very deep blacks and have moderate reflection issues. Canson PhotoSatin is an excellent semi-gloss paper compatible with dye and pigment inks.

Fibre Based Alternatives are similar in texture to semi-gloss papers but generally a little more towards the matte end. The offer an almost ideal combination of deep blacks and surface robustness, with minimal reflection issues. Crane Silver Rag is a superb semi-matte paper.

Matte Papers are truly matte (sometimes called ultra-matte, or watercolour papers) - they have no reflectivity issues at all. The price you must pay for this is somewhat weaker blacks. Papers like the excellent Hahnemuehle Photo Rag offer very good blacks that stand up well to normal diffuse lighting conditions, but this surface is not ideal for exhibition under very strong, point exhibition lights. Smooth matte papers are the very best papers at letting the image speak because there is no surface texture or reflection to interfere with the image.

About Ink Receptive Coatings

Coatings are applied to inkjet papers to make them more receptive to high ink loads - without them, the ink would bleed and sharp results and highly saturated colours would not be possible. Coatings also play a big role in the longevity of a print - better coatings offer more resistance to the common things that cause fading - notably gas fading and fading due to ultra-violet light.

Most modern inkjet coatings are of the micro-porous type (sometimes referred to as nano-porous). These coatings have small, invisible holes in them, into which the ink falls. Generally, if a paper is 'instant-dry' it has a micro-porous coating. Micro-porous coatings are more susceptible to gas (ozone) fading, as the gas more easily comes into contact with the actual inks. However many modern coatings have overcome this problem.

Another type of coating are the swellable coatings. Here, the coating swells around the ink once the ink is laid down on the paper. In general, this approach offers better resistance to gas fading in particular. However these coatings do not work with pigment inks. But for dye based printers, these papers can have a very significant effect on print longevity - some tests indicate the life span of a print on swellable papers can be triple that of prints on micro-porous papers, with life spans rivaling those of pigment ink prints.

Optical Brighteners

Optical Brighteners (often referred to as OBs, or Fluorescent Whitening Agents - FWAs) are chemicals used in many contexts - for example, they are put into detergents to achieve brighter whites and stronger colours. Toothpaste is another common place they are found.

OBs convert light through fluorescence, right at the far blue edge of the visible spectrum (i.e. UV light) into visible light, thus making whites appear cooler and brighter, and colours more saturated. This is done for marketing reasons (i.e. look at our lovely bright whites) and also to allow the manufacturer some tolerance in the paper making process (e.g. if the paper base of a particular batch is a little more yellow than spec, OBs can be used to cheaply bring the paper to a consistent state).

The jury is still out for many people on whether OBs are of real practical significance when considering the longevity of a print. Some people believe OBs will simply fade away over time, leaving the paper no warmer than it would have been anyway, and no warmer than papers originally sold without them. Others believe the chemicals are likely to have an effect on the long term survival of a paper (either causing greater degradation over time, or leaving the paper more yellow than it would have been were the OBs never present), and thus should be avoided at all costs. Some people just don't like warmer papers and so are willing to accept OBs no matter what the cost!

The reality is that many prints made by great printers of days past, people like Ansel Adams, were made on papers with OBs in them. Undoubtedly they have a different visual appearance today to prints made on papers that never had OBs in them, but it turns out that many of these prints are still the preferred prints today! The character they have taken on (through the OBs fading) is actually still appreciated! Thus, as usual, the answer is not simple.

However, in terms of colour management, OBs are a definite problem. Firstly, then tend to promote metamerism, making colour casts on black and white prints under different light sources much worse, and they also mean that what you print now will not be what is on the page in a few years (as OBs fade much more quickly than paper coatings without them)...thus all your good work in colour management is negated after just a few years if you use papers with OBs in them. It may be the fading is very minor, so this may not be a real practical problem, of course, but some very bright white papers have a LOT of OBs in them (e.g. a lot of the Epson papers) so these should definitely be avoided.

If in doubt, and particularly in the gallery market, it is probably best to avoid them, or at least papers that have lots of them in them. Papers like Photo Rag, Silver Rag, and most of the Canson papers have only minimal amounts at most, or generally none at all, and are often still really quite a bright white.