From the course: Inkjet Printing for Photographers

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Understanding paper traits

Understanding paper traits - Photoshop Tutorial

From the course: Inkjet Printing for Photographers

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Understanding paper traits

Whether you like matte or glossy with a smooth or really textury finish, there are certain things you'll need to look for when you're evaluating a specific type of paper. By now, you can probably guess that the first thing I am going to say is look at the blacks in the print. Are they dark enough? If they are, how does the overall contrast range look? Do you see a lot of fine mid-tones where you need them? Skies, reflections, shiny, curved surfaces, these are all places where you need lots of good intermediate tones of various kinds. Next, how does the color look? Is it saturated enough for you if that's what you like? Are some colors more saturated than others? For example, maybe the blues look good, but the reds are muted somehow. Believe it or not, different papers have different abilities to show detail and sharpness. If a paper absorbs a lot of ink causing the ink to spread and diffuse, then you may not see as much sharpness and detail as with a paper that holds the ink on its…

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