Ultra Premium Luster VS Exhibition Fiber

[thebarnman]

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<p>Looking for the best for color saturation, detail and photo realism. <br /><br />Monitor is calibrated with it's own Gretag Macbeth monitor profile. There is an (paper) ICC profile for the Ultra Premium Luster paper using the Gretag Macbeth product. I have not done the ICC profile for the Exhibition Fiber paper as of yet. <br /><br />I'm using a Epson 2880 printer, Epson inks and I'm getting ready to print images using Epson Exhibition Fiber paper (once things are calibrated with an ICC profile for the new paper) Then I thought, "does the Ultra Premium Luster have better color saturation than the Exhibition Fiber?<br /><br />I did a commercial shoot for a local theatre and used Fuji Provia 100 transparency film (35mm) using my Leica (and a couple Leica lens). The idea was to have lots of color and lots of "life" and it will be displayed at the theatre. The selected final images will be drum scanned with a Adobe 98 color profile. I'm doing my best to retain the full color gamut of the Adobe profile through to the printing process. <br /><br />I read lots of great things about the Exhibition Fiber but I have never seen how color looks on it...except for an example at Fry's Electronics I was not really impress with. However the B&W example at the same store with the Exhibition Fiber looked fantastic . <br /><br />So now I'm wondering is the Exhibition Fiber the way to go for photo realistic color imagery that will mach (or come very close to) what I see on my original transparencies? <br /><br /><br />Thanks! </p>

[jimsimmons]

<p>I use the Exhibition Fiber paper, Barney, and the color saturation is fantastic. I used it mostly for B&W, but the color tests I've done are great. I've not used the Ultra Premium Luster, but have used the Ilford Smooth Pearl. It has good color saturation too, but not quite the brilliance or depth of blacks that the Exhibition Fiber has. Purely my point of view, not scientifically measured.</p>

[roger_smith4]

<p>I think your biggest challenge is the proper scanning of your Provia film, but hopefully drum scanning by a skilled operator takes care of that.<br>

For the printing I haven't really seen big saturation differences between any glossy paper I've tried. Sure, some have blacker blacks but the main difference has been in what the paper surface looks and feels like. Epson luster is kind of pebbly. Semi-gloss less so, semi-matte doesn't really call any attention to itself. Harman FB Al has a bit of a glossy sheen, Silver Rag is creamy with a texture to it, etc. Under glass they frankly look quite similar. I prefer papers that are fairly rigid and which won't bulge or dimple as I don't use an adhesive mount.<br>

By the way, Epson has its own profiles for all of its papers which perform reasonably well. I use custom profiles, however.</p>

[benbangerter]

<p>Epson Exhibition Fiber does a fine job with color. Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk has a similar finish, and a warmer base color, and is a popular paper. Really, only you can answer your question. You need to make some prints. Get some samples and see what you like.</p>

[dan_linne1]

<p>I like EF better than UP Luster, EF is brighter and has a smoother texture, but I like Moab Colorado Gloss the best. It is just like EF, but not as thick and I find it ever so slightly smoother, and available in rolls. The cost is also better than EF. I use it for BW and Color.</p>

[thebarnman]

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<p>Thanks everyone. I'm going to go ahead and use the Exhibition Fiber paper. Dan, the Moab Colorado Gloss sounds interesting. I'm going to check that out for a later use. <br /><br />Roger I agree, I'm really nervous about the proper scanning of the Provia film. I intern at a photography studio and we have had many drum scans from Tempe Camera. They usually scan our medium format transparencies at a low level so it captures "all the details". (We end up having to raise the levels back up when we get them back.) Then when we get the scan off from the CD, we have to use levels to bring the image back up to a proper brightness level. That seems to work, however the biggest problem in doing that is with the dark areas of the image. We always have tended to get a "green" effect in the very dark areas or where there is black such as in black hair or black clothing. It takes a lot of work to get the green out of those areas. We've even come up with ways to get the green out such as selecting the green area, desaturate the color down to zero, then we can make that area any color we want...and poof, the green is gone. That technique does not always work for other dark areas with other types of very dark colored areas, but at least we can get it "right" if enough time is spent on it. At the same time, it can take hours...a huge waist of time. <br /><br />I think what's happening, is sometimes they scan the images at such a low level, that the drum scanner cannot distinguish all of the very dark areas of the transparency. And so what happens is the dark areas falls into "noise" that the scanner cannot read and resulting with the green effect we have experienced. <br /><br />There is something we have done before that has helped improve our scan results. And that was to request that the histogram not be "bunched" up at either end of the scale. Where before the "bright" part of the histogram would stop kind of long before the end of the scale and the same with the "dark" end of the scale. <br /><br />There are three pro labs in our area (around Phoenix AZ). That's Tempe Camera, Colormark and Image Craft. As a test, I took the same medium format transparency to all three places and all of the resulting scans had the "green" problem. The interesting thing is, the resulting green varied from lab to lab. Tempe Camera had the least of the green effect with the other two labs being much worst. In this experiment, the green effect from the other two labs was more intense and ended up in different places of the scan. The thing that is consistent about this matter, is that the "green" effect is all located in the darker areas of the image. <br /><br />In the last half year or so, our scans have been coming back with less problems. We don't seem to get the green effect as often as we used to. It might have to do with the fact that we've requested that the histogram not "clip" before the end of the scale or who knows! It's almost hit and miss, but at least we have received some much better scans recently. <br /><br />Anyway, I had talked about this before and shown examples on this forum. However the example I had shown was very extreme and was from a "standard" scan (not from the same drum scanner) from 35mm film (Provia). In this case the green effect was not just a low level color mixed in with the scan (in the dark areas) like we have seen with the medium format scans. This green was dotted and very distracting and is not that way on the original transparency. It's interesting, but should not be happening. I have a couple examples below. <br /><br />Luckally one other time I have had 35mm Provia scanned at Tempe Camera's drum scanner with good results.<br /><br />Evidently we have been the only ones to have complained about this "green" problem. That tells me there must not be too many people that care about quality or they simply have not noticed. There was a time we did not notice. We had a image of a client wearing a black suite. Unknown to us, the whole suite was a very dark green. If you did not pay attention, anyone could have made it out as black...(that's how fine the green is) When we got the print back, someone from the lab mentioned that the suite was green. When we sampled the color of the black suite in Photoshop, the green was much higher than the other colors. When we finally took the green out, side by side, the difference was striking. The client was finally wearing a black suite. <br /><br />Bottom line, I've got my fingers crossed that I hope the new scans won't have the green effect.</p><div></div>

[thebarnman]

<p>2nd Example</p><div></div>

[roger_smith4]

<p>Thanks for the drum scanning report- that looks like shadow noise to me but a bit different in character from the desktop scanners I'm used to. It's good to hear that upping the exposure helps you deal with it.</p>