…but not great either.
Having been a user of Ilford RC and other photographic paper for traditional printing, I decided to give their digital media a try. This stuff is certainly better than Ilford’s “Classic Gloss”, but it still has slight problems soaking ink up in the areas of heaviest application. Even with all of the profiles from Ilford installed, and using the settings they recommend, shadow detail is not great. The ink tends to float on top of the paper rather than being soaked up and sealed.
On the bright side, as long as the profiles are installed and used (and you follow their adjustment recommendations) color rendering is very good, at least on par with the professional Canon paper I normally use. Keep in mind you do have to follow the Ilford recommended manual adjustments or else Reds and Magentas are over-represented. This, however, is generally a trait with Canon printers on any media.
Note that this paper was tested using a Canon Pro 9000. Results may differ on other printers.
I really hate to have to write this review because I LOVE Ilford traditional photographic paper. It’s the only thing I use in the dark room. I’ll try this media again if they decide to reformat their paper line, but they had better get it right next time.
Pros: Bright, Professional Weight
Cons: Slow to soak up ink, shadow detail suffers, must manually adjust color values.
Bottom Line: For now, I am sticking with Epson and Canon papers. I may continue to use this paper in non-critical large format applications, but I’d never use it for smaller work. At least, not until Ilford gets a clue and irons out some of the wrinkles in their process (profiles, ink absorption).
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