articles/Paper/permajet-fine-art16-page1

Paper Chase - Permajet Fine Art Range 2016 - part 1 of 1 2 3 4 5

by Mike McNamee Published 01/02/2016

PermaJet launched a new range of fine art inkjet media at the Convention this year. They have taken the opportunity to rationalise the line-up, tweak some products and develop a number of brand new ones. After 15 years of service the less popular media have been retired and user feedback has been employed to improve other products.

Changes to the workflow are hardly needed, but we took the new papers and ran them through our standard audit routines which includes making bespoke profiles. For completeness we have added back some legacy data for the unchanged products. The weight reductions should help with media transport issues that sometimes arise with weightier papers (there is a limit of 500 microns on an Epson 3880, 270 microns on the auto feed of the 4900 and 790 microns on the manual rear feed of the 4900. Despite this we had a train crash using Museum Heritage on the rear slot of the 4900).

The inclusion of alpha cellulose in Museum Heritage is intended to reduce the occurrence of paper cutting shards contaminating the printed surface - a small fragment of rag fibre can spoil a print. The stiffness imparted by the alpha cellulose might have added to the transport problems; it is not insurmountable, it just needs a bit of care.

Our last full review of the PermaJet range was in 2010 (when we used an Epson 3800, 3880, 4800 and 4880). When choosing a paper it is essential to consider the whole range, some favourites have been left unchanged and are as good today as when they were introduced. Generally, the legacy data are comparable to those measured recently except that the extended gamut of the 4900 HDR ink set has improved the range of Pantones that can be reproduced and improved the statistics for the HiGAM patch set in our audits. Because our testing protocols have become more stringent, we have only included legacy data which is relevant or noted the changes with the data.

Choosing a paper for its texture is self-evidently a personal matter. You give up some highlight detail in the undulations but little else. Personally I do not care for the surface of the Artist Watercolour, others may hold different views!

The choice of base tone and OBA tolerance is more amenable to measurements. Gallery Etching and Artists Watercolour are OBA free and slightly creamy - they join Alpha Natural in this regard. Museum Heritage and Portrait Rag have slightly elevated Fluorescence values and a moderate loading of OBAs. Photo Art Silk is almost 4 points toward blue (ie cooler)and has a Fluorescence of 6.8 and joins Portrait White at the cool end of the range. As the graph shows, the base tones of Portfolio Rag, Omega Rag, Museum Heritage and Portrait Rag are closer to neutral.

• Paper Chase - Permajet Fine Art Range 2016 page 1
  
• Paper Chase - Permajet Fine Art Range 2016 page 2
  
• Paper Chase - Permajet Fine Art Range 2016 page 3
  
• Paper Chase - Permajet Fine Art Range 2016 page 4
  
• Paper Chase - Permajet Fine Art Range 2016 page 5
  

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