Pondering paper choice for gallery showing.

[zerodog]

I have a larger print job that I am doing in the next few days. 10 16"x20" prints to hang in a gallery for a few weeks. The prints are of photos I have taken at the Day of The Dead Festival over the past few years. I may or may not have any sales off of this. So, cost is a consideration. But there will be a few 1000 people that view these and could be good exposure for me. The 2 papers I have in consideration are Epson Hot Press Bright (cotton based photo rag) and Ilford Smooth Pearl (Nice heavy weight luster photo paper)

The cost per print for the paper is this:
Hot Press Bright $3.84
Smooth Pearl $1.44

Glare could be an issue, prints will be behind glass pressed against it in frames.

The other consideration I am unsure of is the cost per print in Ink. In general, does matte paper use more ink than semigloss? :dunno

[freygr]

If the print is going unmatted behind glass use a matt paper, as otherwise could get moray patterns.

On my smaller printer (13" wide) the difference of the ink usage between papers is almost non-existent.

[Axle]

I'm a sucker for Ilford Smooth Pearl, it's been my paper of choice for a couple years now. Can we get some examples of the images you're going to be printing (if you can) so that we can make a better decision.

[zerodog]

Yeah I love the smooth pearl for general printing. I got some epson premium luster to try. Not as good. The quality is good, but it is not as thick so the prints feel cheaper. I love cotton paper too. The right thing on it looks fantastic.

Here is one of the guys I am printing.

[zerodog]

I went for an 8x10 of each paper to see what I liked more. It wasn't an exact test. I did it with the Epson photo luster and Hahnemühle bright white photo rag a very similar paper to the hot press. I had a sample pack with some sheets. In the end I chose the Matte. It just looked nicer for this print for a lot of reasons. Mostly the softness. The luster was too stark and sharp.

The ink use was very similar. Some colors more and some less on the matte. The new job report feature is pretty cool on the epson system. You can see how much ink was used per channel on a given print. One of the big prints was 3.1ml the other was 4.1ml. So I figured the cost like this. .40 cents per ml in the 200ml cartridges. .40 X 4.1ml = $1.64
The Epson Hot Press Bright is 16 cents per linear inch on the 17" roll. 24" giving me 2 inches per side for the double cut on the paper trimmer. .16 x 24 = $3.84
The total for this print done at 16x20" is $5.48 Not super cheap, but not too bad either considering the quality of the print.