If you are serious about fine art printing and especially on matte papers (B&W or color) you check out many papers and settle with your favorite. Currently high on our list are:

• Epson Somerset Velvet Fine Art
• Hahnemuehle Photo Rag (also under many other OEM names)

What do we expect from a good fine art paper?

• Longevity (Acid free, no brighteners, not 100% for many papers)
• Not to delicate surface that it can chip off if you frame the photo and use an art brush (Photo Rag has to be handled with care)
• Good gamut
• Thick so that it does not need mounting for framing
• Available in many sizes
• Smooth surface (that depends on your taste and the of course the photo)
• Natural white look (better slightly creamy than unnatural ultra bright)

Epson will soon release it's new Ultra Smooth Fine Art paper. We got some samples in different sizes from Epson. Here are some impressions:

• If the data are right then this is a paper designed for best longevity (acid free, OBA free and buffered)
• Really very smooth surface
• Right thickness
• Good gamut
• Natural good white (very slightly more creamy than the Enhanced Matte paper which we find a bit too bright)
• Available in the following sizes (maybe in August)
  • 250g 24" x 50'
  • 250g 44"x50'
  • 500g 24" x 30"
  • 500g 36" x 44"
  • 325g 13" x 19"
  • Letter sized planned later (we miss 17x22 and maybe 11x17)

We printed all our tests with ImagePrint RIP v5.6 on our Epson 7600 with standard Ultrachrome inks (matte black).

We printed B&W and color. Both looked really good. We can anticipate to make this our main art paper in the future.