Which images work best on Fine Art Smooth papers? - Fotospeed | Paper for Fine Art & Photography

So what should we print on Harlemuller Fine Art Plain Papers? Well, hello, welcome to this photo. Quick video with me, Tim Jones, today. What we are going to see are the

smooth

Fine Arts

paper

s from Harlemula and they will give me a test. packaging now, if you watched my Fine Art textured video on what we should print on textured

paper

s, it will follow along similar sort of lines and this time I will use the Harlemuller Fine Art soft test pack to do this on an A3 plus like the

which

I have here, but they also make it in an A4 package.

Now I always think this package should be called a

photography

test package to be honest because the papers we have in this are the ones we have. I have a rice paper that is a beautiful paper and I'll talk about that at the end because it's something a little bit different in this test pack and I just want to spend a little more time on it because it's also a beautiful paper. Here we have the photo cloth, the Harlemuller 308 gram paper, also the Duo photo cloth, the bright white photo cloth and also the Ultra soft photo cloth.

Now all of these papers are 100% cotton except for the rice paper,

which

is just a little bit different like I said, but like I said, it's the Fine Art soft test pack, but it's actually the Photo Rag test pack. Now it's probably the most popular Mac Fine Art paper in the world and it's for a reason, so what I'm going to do is walk you through each of these documents and show you the detailed shots and also make a couple of prints. in them so you can see my suggestions for what to print and how. To use these Fine Art

smooth

papers now, this could also apply to other paper brands like Photo speeds and Canson papers, but today I will just use the Harlemula trial pack and look at their range of smooth matte papers and I have To be honest, too They are quite beautiful, but before we dive into these articles and see what they are and what they do or as always, don't forget to subscribe to the channel, just click the subscribe button. at the bottom right also if you haven't subscribed to the Photo Speed ​​newsletter yet because that will keep you up to date with all the news, all the happenings and news from Photo Speed ​​and also exclusive offers and discounts, so today if you register.

Until the newsletter, a newsletter will be published with a discount code for all Harlemuda articles and also, if you haven't already, download Photo Speed ​​​​Art of Printing, the free ebook on everything about printing, from Turn on the printer until framing and mounting. to profiles and everything in between, so if you're just starting your printing journey then there's something there for you, but if you're an experienced printer then there's something there for you too and you can go into as much detail as you want, so go to the Photo Speed ​​website, sign up for the newsletter and download the Photo Speed ​​print art okay so let's dive into the Harlemula Fine Art Soft Proof Pack so I made some prints on the papers from the proof. and I chose

images

that I think I would print on them and use the papers.

I also chose

images

to show the versatility of the paper because, to be honest, like I said, this is more of the photo. Rag test package, apart from the rice paper it contains, are very similar papers. You have 308 photo cloth as your amazing paper type and then there are variations of that, like a smooth version and a bright white version. and also the double sided version, they are all based on one theme so there isn't much variation, however they do have very subtle differences that suit certain images more than others so hopefully I can give you some inspiration today. on how to actually use these papers so let's take a look at some prints and we'll start with a photo rag we'll start from the top and that's our control type and our base paper and then I almost compare everything to that too so let's take a look to Photorag 308.

Okay, here's a print I made in Photorag 308. Now a really really nice image looks absolutely fantastic as Photorag, as this very, very subtle texture on the page. Also, it is a soft paper, but it has a very subtle texture. I hope the detailed shots I've done highlight that and it fits the scenes very, very well. I printed it as a street portrait here and it

work

ed very well. I think its details hold up absolutely fantastic, especially like the license plate, it has beautiful shadow detail. We can also see a definition between the pant leg and the shadow under the car and things on some papers, especially on maybe the plain paper that we'll use.

Come on a little bit that you could block a little bit and that will be the difference between them, the very, very subtle differences between we have some lovely details on the windshield here and other things, but also added a little bit of texture. all the way to the top here, which hasn't overtaken the image at all, but in the softer areas of the image just added a little bit of texture which enhances the image and as I said in previous videos, I think it's paper. Choice is part of your editing process and can be a very, very subtle tool, so while Photoshop is more of a hammer edit, paper choice is more of a pen edit, very subtle and has a kind of lovely effects too, but I also printed a wildlife image and put in an image of a frog just to show you how vibrant this paper can be with color and how it can really pop off the page.

Now this is not the bright white version, this is just the photo. rag, so it's more like a natural white, however it has absolutely fantastic color and as we're seeing a bit, I've also done some black and whites in Photo. The rag also does amazing blacks and whites and really has a deep, strong black. there, so you can't go far wrong with the photo cloth. I think that, as a role and as an option, everything will

work

very well. You will not have problems with any area. If we say really, you could say no. I need to continue, this is the paper you should have, however, the other papers have certain advantages, but I am referring to the photorag, if you are ever in doubt about which of these papers to use, just use the photorag, that's it. to be beautiful, so let's go ahead and look at the bright white photorag.

Okay, so I took a couple of photos on the bright white photorag. Now the only real difference between this photorag, the glossy white version and the just Standard photorag. The version is that the bright white is a little bit heavier, so it weighs 310 grams compared to 308 grams, so in practice, although there is not much difference, I would also say that the bright white is very, very slightly heavier. soft in my opinion, very slightly now that I have I printed a couple of black and whites here because for the bright white version I think this is where it has a slight edge on the photographic cloth that holds the detail because of that white base, that base really strong white here holds the detail beautifully. in the type of fur and the antlers and everything here, especially in the snow part down here, it also stays white and really does a fantastic job.

I'm not saying it wouldn't show on the photographic rag, I think. just the white base of this makes it pop a little bit more and I think for blacks and whites I usually say a white base is better because it gives you something to match everything with the mid tones and the shadows and the highlights. and things against it, but to say that high white point comes at a cost as it contains quite a few obas, so the optical brightening agents will, over time, evaporate over decades, so it is something to think about that possibly They could yellow a Over time, I have also made this image here mainly to illustrate the black and the black point that this paper can achieve.

Now you've got beautiful detail in the shadows down here, you've captured all the little mid tones and everything and all the little details are lovely and sharp on the grilles and fenders and things up here, but the black area up here is really a nice deep black , it won't be as deep or as silky as say a glossier paper because it is still a matte paper, however the black point on these papers is incredible and for a black and white print it looks fantastic. I think I'd probably go with the higher white point just for the blacks and whites, just for that, so you have something to really play with. especially if your image has a greater extent of black, if it has a lot of midtones, like this image isn't really a solid black, then we could probably get away with the standard photo rag. because it's a little bit warmer, it's possibly not as white, but it's still a white paper, but it looks very good.

I think it worked really well with the snow and stuff back there, so anyway, let's go ahead and look at the Duo Photo Rag. and what this brings to our options with our printing, okay, here's the photorag Duo. Now this paper is very smooth, it's very similar to the ultra smooth photorag, it really has no texture. I have tried to show it on camera. And trying to show the texture of smooth paper on camera can be quite difficult, so I apologize, but I'll show some shots and stuff so you can take a look now. It is very soft, but the advantage of this paper is that you can print on it. both sides and offers fantastic reproduction on both sides, the only small nitpick I have and if Halloween was looking at the double sided paper I should have said that all the papers are stamped on the bottom so you can identify them now on the package test. on duo paper you have one side with a stamp and then one side without so you need to be aware of that but that could happen and remember it's a test pack so it's a bit annoying but I guess it's there . so you can identify it so it's okay, it's also a little bit lighter than the standard photo cloth, it's 276 grams instead of 308 um like I said, it's more like the ultra smooth paper that I'll get to with Acro in a minute and it's a very soft paper, but a quite nice white dot.

The black point produces fantastic color very well. um it works really works really well if you have a smooth surface. That's why I chose this softness that goes down into the water here and also in the image on the back. I have that beautiful still long exposure here and it works very, very well. It also maintains the details very well. um, yeah, really impressed with her. I think you can see it being used in books. Maybe it's a little too thick for 200 and 276 gram books, maybe a little too thick for books, possibly, but it would make a very good inside cover or front cover, maybe if you're making a soft-bound book, so there are a lot of options with it and it works very very well too okay so let's see because I've talked about the ultra smooth and how it really compares let's take a look at the ultra smooth next and how it works really well so let's look at the ultra soft photorag.

It now weighs 305 grams, making it slightly lighter than the standard photo cloth. However, you can't feel it. It feels amazing in your hand. This paper I have to say you can really feel the cotton in it and it feels beautiful. It's a very, very smooth surface, a bit like the duo um and like I said, I tried to show it as

best

as I could on camera, so I apologize if it doesn't come out as well, but it's quite tricky to try. shows a really soft paper in the camera, it really suits a shot like this where you have a big expanse of, say, a solid color, in this case the white goes into, for example, black and white and it just softens, it adapts very, very well to this.

I think if I did this on the standard photo rag there would be too much texture that would distract from everything here and the building would get a little lost, but it also works great for portraits. of street portraits here and it will work great for landscapes and things like that too, however I would personally say that for landscapes I prefer a little bit of texture so I would probably go with the standard 308 photo rag when I'm looking at Landscapes because I just want that little bit of texture that That paper would now be used for portraits and things.

It works very, very well. Also, the color has been done fantastically again. It works great on shadows and highlights and everything in there. I would say this paper is a little more suited to muted colors, a little better, it can tend to block right under this wheel here where there's a black wheel going into the shadow, it's just lost a little bit of definition, um , does as always. Let's say this paper just absorbs the contrast a little bit, so you might have to make some adjustments there, but once you get it right, it really looks absolutely fantastic and the really really nice, really nice details, we have. all the plaid and stuff on the pants and everything, it looks really good, like I said, it suits the muted colors a little better.

If you wanted a bright brush color then you'd probably look at bright white, whereas this one is a little more subtle. for you, but yeah, a really beautiful role feels very,alright, okay, now let's look at the last paper, now it's a little bit complicated to hold because it's rice paper, so it's a very, very thin paper, it weighs only a hundred grams and it's got this kind of very subtle texture that makes it it runs up and down almost like a little bit of grain there and it reminds me a lot of Washi paper from Japan and it instantly reminds me of a sort of Japanese stab buying books and it just works wonderfully, you can even shine a little bit of light on it just because it's quite thin and it actually makes very, very nice prints.

Now I've printed a traditional type of flower print here because I think that was the first thing I thought of when I thought this was some kind of flower in Japan. and Tokyo and other places, um, but you could print anything, to be honest, it would work very, very well. I think some nice black and white portraits or something, you know, it's lovely. Must be. I think it needs to be bound. a book paper for me anyway, but other people I've seen using it I've put it in big light boxes and showing light through them and illuminating the image and things like that, there's quite a few options we can do here with this.

The grain on it is just beautiful for some reason, you see it in the picture and I usually say if you can see the grain there you probably shouldn't use the textured paper and stuff however this grain for some reason on the rice paper it just adds to the kind of it just adds to the scene and it's really very nice um and really beautiful paper it holds up also it holds up very well the detail is blocked a little bit in the shadows but it might be that we just need to Open them up very, very slightly, but again it's a beautiful paper and worth something a little different in this test pack in addition to the photo rags.

Really cute. I think I need to use this one more. But yeah, I think it's really very. Well, I hope this has given you an overview of what's in the Harley Muller soft test pack and what kind of images might work

best

on these smooth papers now that they're a little different than textured papers in general because they're a smooth paper, most subjects will work quite well on all of them and also because they are all photo rag products, other than the rice paper, they are all very similar, if I had to choose one, although I would probably choose just The standard 308 photo cloth is the first paper it does what it says on the tin it has that beautiful stretcher grain which I like some of you might not like it and might prefer the ultra smooth for me I really like it a lot subtle grain structure which the 308 photo rack has and I also quite like the natural white point of the paper, although it's still white, it's just the bright white, maybe it's too much and it's also a little bit softer, so maybe it's just a little bit more of texture in the photorag 308, a standard version that I like and that swayed my decision a bit.

I hope this was helpful and gave you some ideas and inspiration, I guess what I used the Fine Art Soft Trial Pack on, but don't forget we are here at photo speed for our own Fine Art Soft range too and make trial packs in that too, however, the Harlemina papers are really beautiful and if you haven't tried the photo cloth. I really highly suggest that you maybe get a Harlemuller Fine Art A4 pack and try it out and try the test pack and see which one you prefer, like I said. I prefer the standard. 308, but many people I know prefer ultra smooth and bright white too and soon we will also be using rice paper and I think it is one of those papers.

I think I should use a little more and find a way to use it, but as always, the best way to choose and start with one of these papers is to touch them and feel them and see which one you prefer and like the feeling of, like I said, I prefer . the photo rag 308 and I think thinking about it and talking about it with you is that it's the texture, it's that very tactile feeling of the 308, whereas the ultra smooth paper, although it's beautiful and absolutely phenomenal, for me it's just a little bit also. soft and the same with the bright white too, but that's just my opinion so pick yours and see which one works best for you before I go, although don't forget to subscribe to the Photo Speed ​​YouTube channel and also subscribe to our newsletter. for exclusive discounts on harlemula papers this week and also don't forget to download Photo Speed ​​Art of Printing from photospeed.com.

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