Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Paper For Your Works Of Art
There’s more to paper choices than Canon, Epson and Hewlett-Packard. An array of other manufacturers make high-end materials that can match your style.
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The Dallas, Texas-based Red River Paper company has been around since 1997, and they have more than 40 years of experience in fine-art papers. They offer a broad variety of surfaces, including glossy, satin and matte, as well as double-sided papers and a line of specialty media.
Red River’s fine-art line is constructed from 100% cotton. For archivability, they’re acid-free, chlorine-free and buffered. Their inkjet coating is designed to provide the best possible color saturation and clarity with any inkjet printer. The Fine Art papers come in natural or white, as well as the LuxArt Satin Rag. The Specialty line gives you a choice of linen, paper canvas, cordovan textured gloss, sheer translucent, glossy baryta and others. There’s also a 100% post-consumer recycled paper for the green-minded photographer.
This is only a fraction of the overall Red River line, so check out their website to see everything the company makes. Red River papers are generally compatible with any inkjet printer.
Contact: Red River Paper, www.redrivercatalog.com.
 Museo Textured Rag |
Originally created by Crane & Co. (who make the paper for U.S. currency), Museo is now owned by InteliCoat Technologies. Their robust product line is geared to high-end users like professional photographers. All of Museo’s papers are 100% cotton, buffered and contain no optical brighteners.
Because of their commitment to higher-end users, Museo papers are specifically tailored to pigment-based printing. Unlike dye-based inks, pigment inks are known to be more stable over time, and the Museo papers complement this capability. Most dye-based printers can be safely used with Museo papers, but because of their ink technology, they won’t exhibit the same longevity as a pigment-based print.
Museo papers and card stocks are available in all the common sizes and both sheet and roll options. On the website, you can find all of the particulars about their broad range of papers. You also can get ICC profiles to help streamline the printmaking process.
Contact: Museo, www.museofineart.com.
Conclusion
In the days of the wet darkroom, a photographer often would spend countless hours refining the chemistry and paper formula that seemed to work best for his or her style. Some might like Agfa Portriga Rapid, while others preferred the cool tones of Oriental Seagull. Some might like a combination of D76 and HC-110 to boost the highlights slightly, while others chose to dilute the developer to soften the image. Once a photographer found a base recipe, each image could be refined by toning and other darkroom magic.
Today isn’t that different. Experiment with different papers and Photoshop techniques to generate a base recipe. From there, refine your printing techniques as each image dictates.
| Create A True Limited Edition With ARTtrust |
For a long time, photography was declared to be artistic, but not art-worthy of being seriously collected because it was inherently repeatable. If you had a negative, you could simply run off an unlimited number of prints. Famous photographers like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston didn’t number many of their prints because they didn’t make editions. You could place an order and receive a print. Done. Of course, over time, some photographers did make editions, but even these artists weren’t given their due in the major collections because too many photographers were found to be adhering to their limited editions too loosely. And in today’s digital age, when an image file can be precisely copied with a couple of mouse-clicks, the problem can be even more pronounced.  In an effort to give buyers the security of a limited edition, the company ARTtrust has recently stepped into the fray using Prooftag technology to legitimize an edition. ARTtrust pairs individual prints with a non-reproduceable Bubble Tag that has an identification number, which lets the buyer absolutely trace who created the art even through many changes of ownership. The Prooftag technology isn’t new. If you’ve purchased certain luxury goods like a fine watch or other art objects recently, you may have seen one of their tags. The tags can’t be counterfeited and the company maintains an online record of each one (the record includes all sorts of information, including the printer and inks that were used to make the print). To start making your ARTtrust-verified limited editions, you can sign up on the ARTtrust website. There’s a $90 membership fee. Tags cost $18 for each three-label set, and they’re sold in packages of 20. Contact: ARTtrust, www.arttrustonline.com. |
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