What photo paper do you use?

I'm curious what others use and what kind of luck you have with it.

Personally, using a Canon IP4300, I've found Canon Semi-gloss and Ilford galerie smooth pearl to provide the most accurate and vibrant tones and white balance. Canon Matte can be sort of fun to mess around with as well, and its dirt cheap too, but its results are not as reliable.

I'm interested in rags as well, but as expensive as they are, I am not liking the whole experiment with several different kinds idea. Anybody find one that stands above and beyond the rest?

I use a variety of papers. I use cheapo Photo Pro paper for quick prints, but I am a fan of Moab Entrada for rag and Lasal for good prints. Moab will send you a sample box so you can try different types of their papers. I also use Canon paper, Epson paper, and HP paper.

I use Red River paper I like the quality of the prints and it is reasonably priced and they have all the ICC profiles

Anbesol, I use a lot of the el cheapo Costco glossy for run-of-the-mill prints and it serves me quite well and I like the quality and the colour that I get from them. I also use Canon Photo Paper Glossy and have some Epson Premium Presentation Matte that I have been experimenting with and I find I like the matte finishes for some of my bird pictures. I also have some Epson Premium Photo Glossy (11x19) that I have been using to print panos on and am trying to look at printing some larger glossies of some of my landscapes, but that is still down the road a bit. I haven't tried any of the speciality papers, mostly because I print for my own enjoyment (wall hangers) and not for professional sales. Not only that, but I don't do a lot of printing.

Cheers,

WesternGuy

I know this is what the printer manufacturers say but there is truth in it....

Have you ever noticed the way ink spreads out when printed on normal paper? This is an issue with all inkjet printers. The likes of canon and Epson spend lots of time developing inks that won't spread but will still be absorbed into the paper as opposed to sitting on it's surface (ink that doesn't bind to the paper properly causes the print to fade and age prematurely) naturally the blends of inks are secret and the way papers absorb ink is carefully matched to a given brands ink. So for sharpest lasting results the premium paper of your brand of printer is usually best. This doesn't mean don't use cheap paper or other brands, but rather that reaults are tested and repeatable with the same brand. Having said that the likes of ilford sell papers as being suitable for particular brands of printers and these also produce great results although typically without the archival life offered by canon and espon ink and paper. Last time I checked this was in exces of 400 years!

I use an Epson 2880. I really like the Ilford Smooth Pearl. It produces great color and prints nice and sharp. I have also used the Ilford Gold fiber silk. It produces even better colors but it tends to curl going through my printer. It does relax after printing though. I wasted lots of it getting head strikes when figuring out how to deal with it. For the money and the quality, the smooth pearl is killer.

I tried some Hahnemühle photo rag paper. It is truly amazing for the right print. For flowers it blows me away. They look almost 3d and like something you could eat. For B&W the depth is like nothing else. It is really worth trying some of the high end photo rag from any of the top manufactures.

And I also have used a lot of Costco photo paper. After doing a lot of printing on nicer paper, I won't buy it again. With my printer it does exhibit lots of bronzing. This is something I have not seen with any other papers I have tried.

Store brand from Office Max for my 13x19 paper, HP, Canon, Kodak paper for the rest.

Illford Gallerie paper.

I have a Canon Pixma ip5000 and recently have had good results with both Canon Photo Paper Pro Semi Gloss and Kodak Photo Paper, gloss.

I have had pretty good results using Kodak Premium for general purpose photos. Its far from gallery quality, but I find it fairly affordable and it handles the colors well.