Heavyweight contender

INKJET I
Above: At both
1440 and 720dpi,
the Harman Matt FB
produced very fine,
high quality colour
prints with a long
tonal range and
excellent colours.
This was complimented by the very
neutral white Baryta
paper base.
Photographs ©
Huw Walters.
Heavyweight contender
In a world exclusive, Mike Crawford tests out Harman Technology’s much
anticipated new inkjet paper, Photo Professional Matt FB – and he’s impressed
Several new inkjet papers specifically designed to replicate
the look and feel of traditional
darkroom papers have been
released over
the past two
years. And now
joining the ranks
of Da Vinci, Fotospeed, Innova
and Permajet is the first in a
new range of quality papers from
Harman Technology, maker of Ilford’s silver-based monochrome
products.
The paper, which was announced last September at
Photokina, is produced at the
same plant in Cheshire where
Ilford’s traditional black-andwhite paper has been made for
many years, utilising the same
research, development and production facilities.
(To avoid confusion, it should
be noted that the range of Ilford
Galerie inkjet papers is not manufactured or marketed by Harman
Technology and is a separate
business based in Switzerland.)
Special qualities
Harman’s Photo Professional
Inkjet Matt FB, to give its full
title, is a heavyweight matt
paper, weighing in at a very
respectable 310gsm, similar
in thickness to a paper such as
Hahnemühle Photo Rag, but
with a very smooth white base.
One of its main selling points
is that it contains Baryta, (Barium
Sulphate in a gelatine coating)
as an additional layer within the
make up of the paper. For decades, this has been a common
ingredient of traditional photographic papers, but is a material
not often found in inkjet papers.
Coated above the fibre base, it is
designed to improve the paper’s
whiteness, while preventing the
emulsion soaking into the base,
which should then improve the
print’s clarity, rendering deeper
blacks and an improved tonal
range.
The use of Baryta is also being
promoted by Harman as provid24 | 01 | 2007
017-019_BJP_24.01.07rtg.indd Sec2:17
ing an additional improvement in
archival qualities as it separates
the emulsion layer containing the
sprayed image and the base of
the paper, thus making the print
more chemically stable.
Harman has also introduced
its new bespoke ‘anti curl’ technology, applied during the
coating, which should prevent
the tendency that prints made
from rolls of paper have of curling
when freshly printed.
It will also perhaps make it
easier to insert roll paper into a
large format printer when it is
near to its core, where the tendency to curl is usually most
apparent. Harman says it will
also soon incorporate this new
improvement in paper handling
into its range of traditional Ilford
FB black-and-white papers to
make them easier to use in the
darkroom.
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INKJET I
Testing time
To test the paper, I printed a series of images by photographer
Huw Walters on an Epson 7800
using its pigment Ultrachrome
K3 inks. The 7800 is an excellent machine with only one slight
handicap. The main black channel (one of three monochrome
inks) must be fitted with Photo
Black ink for glossy paper and
Matt black for matt prints.
Changing over involves following a long list of prompted instructions for about 20 minutes,
purging inks, replacing various
cartridges temporarily and inserting the main cyan, magenta and
yellow inks, having previously
taken them out, while knowing that several pounds of ink
is being deposited in the printer’s maintenance tank. Having
grudgingly done this, after only
switching inks to glossy the previous day, I was then ready to
test the paper.
Perhaps I have spent too long
over the years printing in the
darkroom with a wide choice of
different photographic papers,
but the tactile quality of a paper,
be it digital, analogue or even
watercolour, is one of the first
things I will notice in a new product. Even though a print is
18
Above: The
extremely vibrant
red tones in this
photograph required
a slight selective
reduction in
saturation, though a
dedicated ICC
profile would
probably correct
this.
Right: Though a
colour photograph
shot through a
warm filter, the
colouring of this
image has a
monochromatic
rendition that was
delicately rendered
on the Harman
paper.
Facing page:
Black-and-white
photographers
should also find this
a useful paper, and
photographers
familiar with Ilford
Photo FB traditional
papers will
appreciate its
smooth matt
surface.
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017-019_BJP_24.01.07rtg.indd Sec2:18
primarily judged visually and not
by touch, the new Digital FB papers are particularly aimed at
photographers, gallerists and collectors who are used to handling
and holding photographic prints.
Otherwise, we would all be happy
to use thin, glossy RC materials
for everything. Harman Matt FB
certainly feels like a good quality
paper, with a pure and smooth
finish, and without the abrasive
texture common to some matt
papers.
To begin, I made some initial
prints from a test chart comprising of colour and black-and-white
images, basic block colours and
monochrome step wedges, which
I normally use to test digital papers. Unfortunately, I did not
have time to get a custom profile
built for the paper, but thankfully
the Epson Archival Matt profile
for the 7800 (ARMP_MK) is usually very close at reproducing a
very accurate colour space, and
the Harman paper required only
minimal correction, using a
correction layer in Photoshop,
which I saved to use on subsequent images. Colours from this
initial test appeared accurate
and vibrant. Blacks had depth
and skin tones looked smooth
and natural.
Grey scales and colour charts
may be useful for a technical
appreciation, but to get the feel
of a paper, the best thing is to
print some photographs. My first
impression was that it produced
24 | 01 | 2007
19/1/07 12:07:55 pm
BARYTA BASE
Protective layers
Active layers
Baryta layer
Fibre base
The Barium Sulphate (Baryta) layer is sandwiched between the
paper’s fibre base and the main active layer of emulsion. Used for
decades in traditional photographic materials, Baryta improves the
whiteness of a paper and renders deeper blacks and an enhanced
tonal range. This chemically stable substrate also helps guard against
image degradation.
was only barely perceptable on
very close examination.
Monochrome
an excellent tonal range with extremely good separation and very
precise colours, even without a
dedicated profile.
Admittedly, an inkjet print is a
combination of paper and inks,
so credit must also go to the Ultrachrome K3 inks. After just a
few hours I felt very comfortable
using the Harman paper. Occasionally I had to slightly reduce
the saturation on a selected colour such as a strong red, but on
the whole, colours were very
reliable.
As a comparison, I printed
some of the images on Hahnemühle Photo Rag and Fotospeed
FB Matt DW, two other high quality matt papers that I use
regularly. It is difficult to say that
one paper is definitely preferable
as they are all good materials and
each thankfully has its own
individual characteristics, but
under very close examination,
the Harman perhaps had the
smoothest image with any perceivable texture of the ink spray
only being detectable with a
loupe. Of course, no one would
look at prints in the real world
with such scientific interest and
observation, but it was encouraging to see how well the paper
received the ink without any over
absorption. I had made all the
prints up to now, a mixture of
A3 and A4, with the print output settings at 1440dpi, which
is Harman’s recommendation for
the highest quality work. I have
never seen any appreciable difference by increasing this to the
maximum quality of 2880dpi
(apart from using more ink),
so instead I tried an A3 print at
720dpi. Again, the credit may be
due to Epson, but the two output
prints looked practically identical
from a normal viewing distance,
and the difference in resolution
‘Coated
above the
fibre base,
the Baryta
element is
said to
improve
its
whiteness
and tonal
range.’
Although it is to be marketed as
a prestige colour inkjet paper,
Harman Technology is of course
the manufacturer and owner of
Ilford Photo black-and-white materials, so it was natural to try the
paper out on some monochrome
images. This certainly did not
disappoint and the prints had a
delicate rendition of tones, with
no apparent signs of the blacks
taking on a heavy saturated appearance. Epson’s software for
the 7800 has ‘Advanced B&W
Photo’ colour management
controls, which allows fine tuning to not only the contrast and
tonal values of the shadows and
highlights, but can also impart
a tone or colour bias to the print
ranging from the very subtle to
the strongly coloured. The Epson
black inks appeared quite cold
against the tone of the neutral
paper base (which is my usual
preference), though this was
easily changed with just a slight
alteration to the colour values
when printing.
Conclusions
This is without doubt a very good
paper with much to recommend
it. The Baryta base certainly
adds a smooth bright quality
to the prints and undoubtedly
contributes to the tonal range
and vibrant colours. It does not
suffer from any obvious bronzing, though this is usually more
common on a glossy paper.
There was also no sign of metamerism when viewing the prints
under both daylight and tungsten
lights, which for years had been
a disadvantage of producing
monochrome inkjet prints without using dedicated four black
24 | 01 | 2007
017-019_BJP_24.01.07rtg.indd Sec2:19
cartridges, though this should
probably be credited to developments in the quality of the latest
inks.
So were there any problems?
Well, there is one slight drawback
in the delicacy of the print surface. The paper contains ‘Instant
Dry Silica’, which enables the
print to dry almost immediately.
However, the darkest shadows
can suffer quite easily from scuffing. This is only a minor problem
as any photographic print, be it
digital or traditional, should be
treated and handled with care
and respect, and the image area
should not be touched. But it is
not uncommon for the surface of
a print to accidentally rub against
another. To combat this, a protective spray such as Lyson’s
Printguard will help to avoid such
scuffmarks arising, as well as
adding extra protection from possible environmental pollutants,
strong lighting and water damage. However, Harman is taking
steps to address this issue. Similar to other producers of digital
papers, it recommends 24 hours
for prints to dry completely before
stacking together, framing or displaying in albums.
The matt paper will initially be
available in 15 sheet packs of
A4, A3 and A3+, although personally I would prefer them to be
packed in larger quantities. It will
also soon be available in 17, 24,
36 and 44 inch rolls. Other surfaces in the range are to be
announced in the near future,
and among the different products
currently being tested in Cheshire
are a heavyweight gloss and a
fine art watercolour paper. BJP
Contact
For further details visit
harmantechnology.com.
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