Posted by Bill Dark on January 12, 2008 at 9:34 PM
Just wondering if anyone has tried Harman's baryta matte FB (not the warmtone) for color work, and if so, what your thoughts are.
Posted by Tim Buchanan on January 13, 2008 at 12:52 AM
Haven't tried the mat, but the glossy baryta is pretty nice for B&W. Would be interested to try the mat, though. I'll have to try it!
Posted by Wayne Rhodus on January 13, 2008 at 10:27 AM
Are you two guys registered Beta testers for media products yet? I'm pretty sure Tim E is!
Posted by Bill Dark on January 14, 2008 at 10:11 AM
Wayne, I'll have to get one of those new HP printers that can profile before I can be a beta tester I still have to profile my paper the old-fashioned way by printing targets and sending them off
Posted by Tim Buchanan on January 17, 2008 at 12:01 AM
Bill - I received some of this paper today (hereafter refered to as HARMAT) and had to give a try. I've only printed a few prints so far. I compared it directly to Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308gsm (HPR308), for both a B&W and Color print.
There's a difference in thickness, color and texture of the two papers. HPR308 is thick, warmish in color and textured. HARMAT is smooth, fairly bright, and well, thinner.
The HARMAT suffered a fate occasionally shared by the Harman Gloss in that the rollers of my printer actually leave slight marks on the paper. I'm not sure why that is, and I don't know if others experience this. This doesn't happen all of the time, and I've never observed it an any other type of paper.
The color gamut appears to be similar (though it's hard to tell with just a test print). The HARMAT does display more detail in the shadows. I didn't soft proof either of the color prints, so more detail could be brought out of the HPR308 (but maybe at the cost of compressing values somewhere else).
B&W prints are really very similar and I'd be happy with either. The HPR308 is warmer, of course, because of the warmth of the paper.
Obviously, this is very preliminary and it will take a while to get a really good feel for the limitations and strengths of these papers.
Posted by Bill Dark on January 17, 2008 at 9:21 AM
Thanks for the info, Tim. I just got my roll of HARMAT yesterday too, but haven't had a chance to do ant tests yet. It is encouraging to know that you are seeing more detail in the shadows - a problem that IJA micro ceramic has had (at least on my Canon). But then again, it costs about 1/4th what the HARMAT costs!
I'll run a few prints tonight and let you know what I find. I just cleaned the rollers last weekend, so I hope marks won't be an issue.
BTW, I'm not sure where you're buying your paper, but I did a little shopping around and Inkjetart had the best price - by quite a bit.
Posted by Tim Buchanan on January 17, 2008 at 9:43 AM
I've been buying my Harman paper at Climax Digital - they seem to be a few bucks cheaper than IJA.
I haven't compared HARMAT to IJAMC, but since they use two different black inks (HARMAT uses mat ink, and IJAMC uses photo ink) I'd expect IJAMC to have slightly better blacks.
Posted by Bill Dark on January 17, 2008 at 8:53 PM
Tim - I just printed a scene from last fall, and all I can say is that I love this stuff. The sharpness and detail is incredible. The 8x10 looked like a LF contact print. Very nice, smooth surface and rich colors. An it uncurls easily too. I'll have to try some B&W. What really amazed me was how well the print color agreed with the monitor using the HPR308 profile. How did you handle the profile - doesn't your HP do it for you?
Posted by Tim Buchanan on January 17, 2008 at 11:14 PM
The HARMAT does produce a sharper image - probably due to the smooth surface and different surface material. I'm glad the HPR308 profile worked so well for you. The HP does profile the paper automatically - which is both a blessing and a curse. I love being able to use new papers whenever I want, but that means I end up spending a lot of money on papers.
Discussion
8 repliesThere's a difference in thickness, color and texture of the two papers. HPR308 is thick, warmish in color and textured. HARMAT is smooth, fairly bright, and well, thinner.
The HARMAT suffered a fate occasionally shared by the Harman Gloss in that the rollers of my printer actually leave slight marks on the paper. I'm not sure why that is, and I don't know if others experience this. This doesn't happen all of the time, and I've never observed it an any other type of paper.
The color gamut appears to be similar (though it's hard to tell with just a test print). The HARMAT does display more detail in the shadows. I didn't soft proof either of the color prints, so more detail could be brought out of the HPR308 (but maybe at the cost of compressing values somewhere else).
B&W prints are really very similar and I'd be happy with either. The HPR308 is warmer, of course, because of the warmth of the paper.
Obviously, this is very preliminary and it will take a while to get a really good feel for the limitations and strengths of these papers.
I'll run a few prints tonight and let you know what I find. I just cleaned the rollers last weekend, so I hope marks won't be an issue.
BTW, I'm not sure where you're buying your paper, but I did a little shopping around and Inkjetart had the best price - by quite a bit.
I haven't compared HARMAT to IJAMC, but since they use two different black inks (HARMAT uses mat ink, and IJAMC uses photo ink) I'd expect IJAMC to have slightly better blacks.