Hahmemüle on the left and Agfa on the right. You can see the cotton rag underpinnings of the Hanny on the left, the slight weave pattern, the texture. I guess this is “pearl” after all. And on the right, ah, the liquid smoothness that is an air-dried glossy gelatin paper. Certainly better than that Innova crap, but still lacking. Hundred bucks a box for 50 letter sheets-sheesh guys, Portriga was never that expensive!
At least they included a fine profile for my R1800 on their website-something that Innova has not got round to do. I have to say, “its not bad” overall, I guess it depends on what you like, it’s still “granular” to me, still too regular, too “manufactured.”
Maybe it never will be the same, the problems are different. Pigments need a microporous surface to accept the ink. In theory, a gelatin paper could be made for dye inks, but there is a drying issue, they take a long time to dry, in fact, they may never dry totally. So they are very unstable. HP and Canon seem to be sticking to the dye bandwagon, maybe it is time to jump ship?
Here is another take on that:
Reflections on Recent Digital Paper Offerings.webloc