Re: guardian paper?

["J. Arthur Davis" <jarthurdavis@earthlink.net>]

> 
> What I can easily believe, is that we are dealing with an economy of scale
> (the photo paper market is, I imagine, much larger than the specialty
> inkjet paper market, for now) and market forces.  But it would take some
> pretty firm evidence to convince me that Guardian, or others @ $2 per
> sheet, is as difficult to manufacture as Ilfochrome, and 6 times more
> difficult/expensive to manufacture than Crystal Archive.
> 
> Regards,
> Mitch Valburg

Mitch:
I take it you never made paper!. When Kodak, Fuji, Ilford, or Agfa make
photo paper they purchase the base paper or plastic by the ton. They may
purchase two or three hundred tons at a time and then they coat the
substrate with a coating that they have formulated and tested for the
last 5 years. They know exactly how their coatings are going to react in
RA4, P4, or Cibachrome chemistry. They have been around for a lot of
years. There are only these three basic processes.

Now when it comes to making paper for the fine art market you have a
completely different story. If you took the number of printers available
and the number of different kinds of inks you can come up with well over
a hundred combinations. As a paper manufacturer you have to guess how
the paper you are making is going to work with all these combinations.
Some will work some will not. 

When you find out which papers and coating combinations work you may
find you only address 10 printer  combinations. Of those 10 combinations
there may be 10 other paper manufacturers creating paper also. You are
not going to make 100 tons of paper for this market. You may only make 5
tons of paper. In a paper mill that is used to making thousands of tons
of paper each year your 5 tons will not make a dent. You don't get much
respect. 

When the mill makes your paper they have to start with a perfectly clean
machine. They can not use machines that have other paper formulations in
it. It is extremely expensive to make such small amounts of paper. There
is also a lot of testing going into this paper also. It may take a
better part of the run just to make sure the formulations will work.
There is a lot of waste.

This whole thing of making paper for the inkjet fine art market is far
from being a science yet, and until it becomes such you are going to
have to pay high princes if your want good paper.

Jim Davis
www.visual-artists.com
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