Luminos RC Glossy Paper

Luminos RC Glossy: My initial impression was very heavy reticulation, even with the saturation level and the individual CMY levels all reduced. But it takes a long time to dry completely. After letting the ink dry for about 24 hours, the reticulation is much reduced, but still somewhat visible in dark colors. And there is subtle banding in the light colors that didn't occur on any other paper. After 24 hours, the ink still felt tacky. Other than that, colors are nicely saturated, the gray scale is a bit magenta, and the dark end of the gray scale loses separation.

It showed no color shift in the ozone chamber!! It did show some shift in the front porch UV test, but not as much as most other papers. However, it did not handle high humidity well. The inks actually bled across the surface of the paper. (I realize this is an extreme test, but the paper certainly doesn't appear to be the choice for prints to hang in your bathroom.) Its resistance to orange shift is good, but image quality isn't.

Luminos Premium Matte: Using the glossy film setting gives interesting results. The colors come out very "soft," sort of a delicate look. Saturation is much lower than with Epson Heavyweight Matte, but the look might be very nice for some images. A little bit warm in the gray scale, too. Using the heavyweight matte setting overloads the paper, causing ripples.

This paper shifted as badly as anything else I've seen, in both the ozone and UV tests. And I'd been assuming matte papers would always do better than glossy. Shows what I know.

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