Epson Hot Press Natural

[Steve Balderrama]

after seeing rave reviews of this stuff over the 'net, I picked up a roll of 17" at Armadillo in H-town, the only place I could find any. I'm printing using a 7600 and Piezography K7 black and white only ink set. I've been disappointed with the dmax of 100% carbon inks up to this point, but let me tell you that this paper is freaking fantastic. Beautiful deep blacks ( not as deep as glossy of course), and just a great tonal range. 100% acid free cotton, no optical brighteners. It prints a bit cooler with the K7 inks than other papers I've used such as Innova cool rag or Epson enhanced matte.

Definitely a paper worth trying.

[Murph]

That is great to hear. I have been looking at this paper, and glad to see your reviews.

Originally Posted by Steve Balderrama

after seeing rave reviews of this stuff over the 'net, I picked up a roll of 17" at Armadillo in H-town, the only place I could find any. I'm printing using a 7600 and Piezography K7 black and white only ink set. I've been disappointed with the dmax of 100% carbon inks up to this point, but let me tell you that this paper is freaking fantastic. Beautiful deep blacks ( not as deep as glossy of course), and just a great tonal range. 100% acid free cotton, no optical brighteners. It prints a bit cooler with the K7 inks than other papers I've used such as Innova cool rag or Epson enhanced matte.

Definitely a paper worth trying.

[sjordan]

I have a roll of 17 and 24 of this stuff. I LOVE IT.

I have been doing landscape and portraits prints on it both in color and b&w. This is the best non RC paper I have found to print color shots.

[jeffkohn]

Good feedback. I've been wanting to try this stuff out. I tried some sheets of the Cold Press Natural a while back; I didn't care for the texture, but the inkjet coating seemed really good, DMax was better than other matte papers I've tried (even Hahnemuhle Photo Rag, which was previously my DMax champ). I figured the Hot Press probably used the same coating. I'll have to get some after I use up my current roll of Canon Rag Photographique.

[sjordan]

Jeffkohn, I had the same feelings about the cold press. I am not big on textured papers and the cold press was pretty rough. The hot press is really smooth so you can get some very fine details with this stuff.

I printed out a few 22x30's from my trip to Yosemite and they were tack sharp

[jeffkohn]

I actually like some subtle texture in matte papers, just not so pronounced that it distracts from the image. I haven't found that perfect matte paper yet with just the right texture and class-leading gamut/dmax. Hahnemuhle Photo Rag is really close in cut sheets, but the last 24" roll I bought was much smoother. The Canson Rag Photographique is also an ultra-smooth paper.