articles/Paper/Paper-Chase-PermaJet-Smooth-Pearl280-page3
by Mike McNamee Published 01/02/2014
The monochrome audit prints were made using the Epson ABW driver. On our system the tone setting 'Dark' produced the closest values for the 50% grey but a user might prefer a lighter or darker print depending upon the subject. The base paper of PermaJet Smooth Pearl is almost neutral, resulting in a very neutral tone to the monochrome. The Dmax was particularly high.
Monochrome Performance
We printed monochrome test images using the Epson ABW driver on an Epson 4900, using PK HDR ink. Initially we used Neutral/Normal as our tone settings and this delivered a print in which the 50% grey tone was about 4% too light. We then printed using the Dark setting for tone and the resulting image came in at 50.7% Lab lightness for the 50% swatch. The monochrome was almost a perfect neutral with Lab values of 50.7 L; -0.03 a; -0.71 b. The metamerism was slightly higher than the full colour shot at 1.95 (CII on 50% grey D65 to Tungsten A) but still a low value. Dmax rose to a very high 2.55. The hue of the grey scale wavered very slightly along the tone scale but was never more than 3 Lab points from pure neutral. Overall then the monochrome performance joined the colour data in the 'excellent' category, indeed we could find no fault with it.
Overall
The new PermaJet media is a superior replacement for the Ilford although it remains a very close mimic of it which you can use without any change to your workflow. The extra performance we squeezed out with a bespoke profile was measurable, but by no means justified changing the workflow for the vast majority of users. Many will regard the reduced OBA activity of the new material as a bonus.
PermaJet have launched the new product at an extremely competitive price point of £15 for 50 sheets for A4 and £30 for 50 sheets of A3 so it is a winner on both cost and performance. It is available in sheet and roll.
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