Printing: It's Complicated!
Harry Simperingham works the Epson SureColor P9560 44" large format printer.


Producing quality prints on a fine art printer is very different than processing photos for posting on the web, which is mostly what I've been doing for more than two decades.  In the old days, in the film era, I would take film to Ritz Camera for processing and 4"x6" snapshots.  Then as the digital era blossomed in the 1990s, I had Ritz scan the negatives and put the images on CDs.  Today in our daily lives we snap numerous photos on our cell phones but do not print them out.  We may print out documents with images, but image and colour quality are usually not much of a concern.

Long ago I also did several courses of darkroom printing through the Smithsonian Resident Associates program.  Most of this was B&W, but I did do one course in colour printing, and I remember how difficult it was too get the right colour balance; it was all to easy to produce an image with too much magenta or too much cyan.  I had another experience with color gone awry when the cover of a book I edited came back with a brownish cover rather than the red I had sought; apparently the publisher was not familiar with Pantone colours.

Colour management in the digital space is complicated; there is a universe of devices, papers, and inks out there each with their own properties.  To make sense of this and ensure color reproduction is consistent across devices, in 1993 a group of big vendors formed the International Color Consortium ("making color seamless between devices and documents.")  High end printers such as the SureColor P9560 have a long list of ICC profiles—data files—for a huge assortment of papers, to optimize printing.
I'm used to looking at images on MacBook Pro, with the display setting quite bright.  It turns out there are other settings which affect the display.
Harry observed that the Dell monitor is not the best.
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As a starting point one must decide what kind of paper to print on.  There are myriad paper finishes.  Paper comes in rolls or sheets of different sizes.  In addition to people's individual preferences, different papers can work better for different images.

Rachel Allen kindly provided several sheets of Moab™ Slickrock Metallic Pearl 26 (13" x 19") manufactured by by Legion Paper Corp.  According to the website, "The paper’s high gloss and unique sheen make this ideal for everyday prints with a twist."  (Specifications:  260 gsm / 12 mil, Brightness 80% ISO, Opacity > 97, Resin Coated, Acid Free, Single Sided, Water-resistant, Pigment (recommended) / Dye).  It is expensive, running US$123.11 for 25 sheets.
Epson Hotpress Bright is described as, "An acid free, 100% cotton rag media with a bright smooth finish. This paper has an extremely-high color gamut and black density."  A 24"x50' roll costs US$171.00 on the Epson website.
Epson Premium Luster is described as an "instant drying paper [that] produces vivid, lifelike images that rival those of traditional silver halide prints. Premium Luster Photo Paper delivers highly saturated prints by offering maximum ink coverage and a high D-Max for true photographic reproductions."  [According to Photo.net, "Dmax is the highest density in the film which can be captured by the scanner," and for negatives refers to the highlights].
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