Best paper for piezography printing

[robert goldstein]

I am planning to have some B&W landscape prints made by West Coast

Imaging using ConeTech Selenium Tone Piezography. The papers that

they have available for this process include Hahnemühle Photo Rag

308, Hahnemühle's German Etching Paper and Somerset Photo Enhanced

Velvet. What are the differences amongst these papers and which

would be best for my purposes. I will be framing the prints and

showing them in a juried competition.

[jonathan_traupman]

It's largely going to depend on your personal preference. All three are very nice papers for B&W prints. Photo Rag has the smoothest finish, Somerset Velvet the most textured and German Etching in the middle. Paper base color will also be slightly different, but all three are bright white papers. All have very good Dmax, with the Velvet having ever so slightly deeper blacks.

 

I personally prefer Photo Rag for my work, since I find too much texture to distract from the image, but that's totally an aesthetic call.

 

Perhaps you can ask the lab to send you samples of all three, so you can decide for yourself.

 

-Jon

[gene_stern]

I tried different types of paper with Piezography. Hahnemuhle Photo Rag is very nice - smooth and contrasty. I like Hahnemuhle William Turner as well. Although to some people this paper may have too much texture, it doesn't bother me. The contrast and detail are beautiful. Also, I have a question of my own: how do you people deal with flaking of Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper? My approach is to make a print, lay it flat to dry and then slip a protective plastic envelope over it and store it in an archival storage box.