Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How does paper weight affect print quality?
- Thread starter NStocks
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Because surely if I use Epson Ink, Epson Paper and Epson Profiles I will get a better result in colour and Black and White (since I will possibly use the paper for both, though I'm looking at using Matte for Linework and Semi-gloss for color production.)
I could try HP but I don't have a sample, and don't think they give out samples so I don't want to spend money on paper I may not like...
Have you used such paper?
First of all, I am coming at this as a photographer - so some of what you want to do I may not be fully understanding.
It is not necessarily true that an Epson/Epson/Epson solution gives the best results. Most really high-end art photographers don't use much Epson paper at all. Epson makes good paper, but they want to sell as much of it as possible, so they make it suitable for a wide variety of uses.
HP paper is pretty much the same same. The high end art papers (Moab, Ilford, Hannemuelle (sp?) are expensive - but are tweaked to give absolute best results for colour photographs - and are better than Epson papers. Also considerably more expensive. You probably don't need these papers, but this is an example of Epson/Epson/Epson not necessarily being best.
Ilford makes some papers that are designed primarily for B/W uses - check with a pro-photo shop - so these might actually be best for your B/W stuff.
Maybe the place to start is here.... What exactly does your stuff look like? We just recently built a house (my cousin is a famous architect so we got lucky). All we saw were black lines on cheap white paper, and digital files of the "artist concepts", so I guess I am not understanding why you need to spend a lot of money on fancy paper. Epson paper is good paper - maybe I should just tell you use it and be happy, eh?
Go to a pro-photo shop, with a good selection of papers, and talk to the sales clerk. You will get your best advice there.... it is their job to know these things.
First of all, I am coming at this as a photographer - so some of what you want to do I may not be fully understanding.
It is not necessarily true that an Epson/Epson/Epson solution gives the best results. Most really high-end art photographers don't use much Epson paper at all. Epson makes good paper, but they want to sell as much of it as possible, so they make it suitable for a wide variety of uses.
HP paper is pretty much the same same. The high end art papers (Moab, Ilford, Hannemuelle (sp?) are expensive - but are tweaked to give absolute best results for colour photographs - and are better than Epson papers. Also considerably more expensive. You probably don't need these papers, but this is an example of Epson/Epson/Epson not necessarily being best.
Ilford makes some papers that are designed primarily for B/W uses - check with a pro-photo shop - so these might actually be best for your B/W stuff.
Maybe the place to start is here.... What exactly does your stuff look like? We just recently built a house (my cousin is a famous architect so we got lucky). All we saw were black lines on cheap white paper, and digital files of the "artist concepts", so I guess I am not understanding why you need to spend a lot of money on fancy paper. Epson paper is good paper - maybe I should just tell you use it and be happy, eh?
Go to a pro-photo shop, with a good selection of papers, and talk to the sales clerk. You will get your best advice there.... it is their job to know these things.
I am happy with Epson papers, I just don't know if there matte is the brightest out there.
My work is 2D black lines and 'artist concepts' which is what the Uni requires really (if it was up to me I'd get rid of fancy rendering and actually learn about the building not how the print was made
), but hey the school don't want that so I need to be good at what they want... )I'll go for the Epson HW Matte or HP Bright White, Hp is cheaper but not as heavy, which is why I don't like the office type paper I have. I could always order both!
I've heard of Illford too and read a lot of good reviews but like you said, I do't need that as it's for graphics not Photo's (mainly).
Thank You for your input.
Ok, Open the PDF directly in Illustrator. It should look like the plan you want. Press > Command(apple) Y. The view will switch to show the now renamed 'Outline' (Apologies - Been using it since v3 tend to use some old terms). This should show the underlying structure of the plans vectors - lots of lines and shapes. If not - you just have a single empty box then your drawing is most likely a bitmap and you can skip the next bit and just print it at a the highest quality your printer will cope with!
If you have a vector plan - then the lines are best printed on a postscript printer. Many Inkjets aren't postscript - you often have to team them with a separate bit of software called a rip - this prints the lines and shapes by converting them to dots at the highest resolution the printer can mange. I don't know if that printer is postscript - you can check that. If not it will still print OK but not as crisp as a postscript printer can. You can always use a high street quick print place - their printer will be PS.
If you've drawn the plan yourself then you probably don't have to do anything. I often have to work with architects plans and proposals to simplify them for public consumption - (eg a shopping centre proposal). The AutoCad (or whatever) output often includes loads of stuff that's not needed for my purposes. Say two sets of walls that print directly on top of each etc etc Extra trees with their visibility switched off ... All sorts of weirdness can creep in. Watch out for fine lines if you're reducing the plans size. You don't want all your walls to disappear when you reduce down from say A0 to A4. Always good to check if it's not your plan.
The stuff I used had a product code of S041069 - but if you get decent 1440 dpi capable paper then it'll be fine.
My file is a vector, loads of lines/paths are displayed in AI.... Very good to know!
As far as my researched shows, the Epson R2880 is not a postsctipt printer. So if I download rip, does this mean I print my PDF's through this software and it automatically changes the pixels or something ?
RE the Paper, how do I know if it's 1400DPI or not? None of the specifications I've found state this.
The paper you work with actually works out a lot cheaper: 100 sheets £10, whereas the heavyweight Matte is around £25 for 50 sheets! The main difference is the weight, brightness and the dimensions of the paper. the S041069 is oversize A3. (maybe I will try and find a sample before ordering, as I'm going to have to cut each page down)
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/129651
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/487
As far as my researched shows, the Epson R2880 is not a postsctipt printer. So if I download rip, does this mean I print my PDF's through this software and it automatically changes the pixels or something ?
RE the Paper, how do I know if it's 1400DPI or not? None of the specifications I've found state this.
The paper you work with actually works out a lot cheaper: 100 sheets £10, whereas the heavyweight Matte is around £25 for 50 sheets! The main difference is the weight, brightness and the dimensions of the paper. the S041069 is oversize A3. (maybe I will try and find a sample before ordering, as I'm going to have to cut each page down)
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/129651
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/487
You're right.
RIP means "Raster Image Processor". It translates your vector images into a rasterized image. Since your printer is a printer and not a plotter this process is necessary no matter where it happens.
Illustrator can do this, but at least up to CS3 not very good. Adobe crippled Illustrator's non-PS printing, as it rasterizes with a resolution lower than your printer is capable of. It's ok for a draft, but you will see jagged edges. Same with Indesign and Acrobat.
Photoshop can do this, but not very convenient. If your output volume is not too high this may be the most reasonable approach for you though. You can select whatever resolution is necessary before rasterizing and use the profiles Epson supplied when using Epson paper. They are not the worst for this printer. Also many 3rd party papers manufacturers supply profiles for Epson's drivers. The quality of those can be good or bad.
A dedicated 3rd party RIP can do this, but usually these are not cheap. Most are targeted at high-end prepress firms and the like. These are pretty expensive. There were some cheaper ones but those had drawbacks too. I'm not aware of any good cheap Inkjet RIPs at the moment.
I was always under the impression that Vector is better than rasterised. When I take PFf into PS, despite the resolution they are still rasterised because PS it based on this. Illustrator however is vector-based so the remain vectors. I imagine this is different in printing though, it takes the image and 'converts' it to dots that the printer can output.
Please could you clarify?
I've purchased this paper : http://www.ebuyer.com/product/487 it prints 1400DPI which is what I want.
What do you mean by better? Photographs are inherently raster graphics. Photographs cannot be improved by vectorizing them. Blueprints, line drawings, color gradients, text, data graphs, etc. are inherently vector graphics. Rasterizing files of these types prior to final output can be a critical mistake.
I'm not sure what exactly AutoCAD does when you export a pdf from it, I'm not familiar with that program. Possibly the resolution you can choose in it's PDF export dialog refers to placed bitmap images in the file if there are any. Just like the corresponding resolution settings in Indesign's PDF export dialog.
As you say, it is usually desirable to keep things vector as long as possible. At some point however you MUST go pixels/dots, as all output devices I can currently think of (exept plotters) are based on a dot/pixel based matrix of some kind (monitors as well). Printing from Illustrator (or Acrobat) means you let Illustrator do the rasterization. It does not send vector information to the printer. Printing from Photoshop just means the rasterization happens before you hit the Print button and not afterwards. And that you can use a resolution (+anti-aliasing) that is adequate for the printer/paper.
Anyone can sell a paper and write 1400dpi on it. Wether it can hold up to such promise or not is another question. Personally I do not like Epson's Photo Quality Ink Jet Paper too much. It's a little wavy, doesn't have the sturdy haptic of thicker papers and it sucks ink quite a bit. I can recommend Epson's Archival Matte Paper. But really it depends on your own requirements and preferences, which may differ from mine.
I was inclined to get the Archival paper but I changed my mind by various opinions and because it's a lot cheaper to get the other one, but I can always send it back if it's not good enough. Is the archival very white ? I mean is it bright, bright white or just slightly white? As posted above, the HW Matte is slightly cream and the semi-gloss is slightly grey...
As far as ArchiCAD goes, I posted above the DPI, and I use 4800DPI, the setting below that is 1200DPI (and my printer is 1400DPI). Can you recommend rip software that I should take a look at? what would be the workflow after ArchiCAD export of a PDF (or any PDF for that matter)?
Thank You.
Yes, it CAN be a critical mistake. Rasterizing text before sending it to an imagesetter would usually be a critical mistake. In your workflow it may be a decent workaround and will yield better results than printing from Acrobat or Illustrator. Of course you're not throwing away the AutoCAD files. You're just using Photoshop as a quasi-RIP and you can trash the rasterized files after printing.
No, Archival Matte Paper is not very bright white. It has a slightly warm tone.
Right now this is the only RIP for the R2880 I could think of:
http://www.efi.com/products/prepress/proofing/express/
That was probably why I didn't go with that option, when printing plans/sections that are mainly black lines, I really need a white paper to show them properly.
Do you realize that in none of your posts in this thread do you state the purpose of your illustration. You start with the architecture-oriented ArchiCAD CAD application. You then jump to discussions of DPI and paper.
If you are doing this work as part of a class project, then it is assumed that your professor expects your work to be professional. The output medium is extremely important, but you don't get to choose the medium. If you want to produce blueprints, then you need blueprint paper. If want to produce a brochure, then you need wax-coated magazine stock. If you want to produce a poster board, then you need board stock of the proper weight.
In a project, your team may be expected to produce each of these. However, you can't substitute 30 lb. glossy wax-coated paper for blueprint just because your graphic looks better on the substitute paper. Part of being a professional is working with the paper to ensure that your work is legible.
Didn't my first post state what I wanted to achieve?
Anyway, I'm at University, learning, not at a paid Architecture practice but that's irrelevant, plans are plans.
ALL my work is individual work. We are not told what medium is required, that's basically up to us, however if the paper it too thin or the lines can't be read accurately for whatever reason, the professor will suggest something.They don't teach us anything about paper weight, medium types, printing technologies or even file types to a point etc. etc. but it's up to the student to look into this if they wish (most don't). AFAIK in the UK Architects don't use 'blueprint paper', or at least not any architecture work I've seen. I know that in the USA things are done completely differently. I'm familiar with most mediums, but also have a keen interest in the presentation of my work (hence why I'm posting this). So far, I have only printed plans and other construction documentation (Black Lines) and 3D renderings, that can be printed on semigloss or gloss paper. Again, as far as I know this is the only thing we will print (plans, sections, elevations, renderings, photography, charts), possibly in 3rd year we will have to make a bound portfolio in which case I will use a professional graphics firm for this.
I'm printing black lines, simple 2D lines in various thicknesses. I came on here to seek advice as to how I can make the lines more crisp by using different paper types. Over the past 2 pages, other members have informed me that it's not just the paper that's important, but rather the file type and how it goes to print output.
I've looked into 5 different paper types, I have so far decided that :
Epson Photo quality inkjet Matte coated paper 105 g/sm should suffice for my 2D black and white plans (lines)
I have also found that Semi-gloss is good for this but I didn't like the overall brightness (or not) of the Epson paper.
Another memer on here suggested that I use the Matte coated paper as he is frequently printing out Architectural Plans as a profession and this media has worked well because it's not reflective but it still has a coating for better detail or cockle as it's known.
I had summarised in earlier posts that I will use Matte paper for Plans and semi-gloss for colour production. I'm yet to decide if the Matte paper I've purchased is good enough as it won't be with me until tomorrow. If it's not quite what I want, I will look at Epson Archival Matte, which I looked at originally...
Furthermore, I'm looking at RIP software but I'm not convinced that it will help me out that much - I'm a student not a architecture firm, I don't have post script printing on call. I have only occasionally printed at uni which use Plotter (post-script), but I prefer to print on my own printer at home, where I live (not on campus).
Hopefully this will clear a few things up that may not have being clear in previous posts.
Have you considered an older Apple or HP A3 Laserprinter? Most of them where Postscript-Printers and can be had for little money on ebay these days. They can be used in an ethernet network. The quality for BW-Lineart would be very good, even on cheap uncoated paper.
Apart from that there's also this RIP: http://www.iproofsystems.com/powerrip_x.htm
A little cheaper. Tried an early version of it years ago, wasn't impressed. But they may have improved meanwhile.
You really have to find out which paper suits your needs best by yourself. As I said Archival Matte Paper is a very nice paper, but that's just my opinion.
I dont want to buy another printer, that's kinda defeating the point of spending £500 on a top-of-the-line Epson professional printer...
I've just received the Epson Photo quality inkjet Matte coated paper. It doesn't seem that 'special' but it does have a nice smooth finish to it, once I've printed the same image out as before (above) I will use my macro lens to closely inspect it...
I'm printing from Adobe Acrobat 9, and today for some reason, I have an option to select media type and resolution (attached). Before I could only select media type, do you know how/why I all of a sudden have these other options?
Thank You
