Printing on Hahnemühle Fine Art Rice Paper 100gsm

The most valuable workshop we have had all year is when Heidi a pr and marketing representative from Hahnemühle came in use loads if samples of different kinds of paper for a while I wanted to print on rice or bamboo Paper as they go with my theme and influences of Japan but going back a number of weeks I decided not to bother after a guy from Metro Imaging told me not to bother (Metro not supplying these paper types he would obviously encourage me not to as I wont use there service).

I then decided to just print on the luster paper uni provides as I don't see the point putting so much energy in paper when its the images that matters. also normally gloss make the colours pop more but I don't like the horrid shine you get with glossy paper it obstructs the view of the image.

Back to the workshop Heidi had rice paper so I thought why not try it out! being 100gsm the paper is so thin which means you can see the images below the paper in the whites wheres theres not much detail.

Example of how thing the paper is, you can see the image behind the paper.

Haidi mentioned not many images work well on the rice paper but mine do :).

Even though rice paper is used for  Sumi-e art black ink isn't meant to show se well.

Example of sumi-e

I ant to try printing a more contrasted image on the paper to see how well it handled the darker inks and the brighter deep colours I knew a image from Japan would be the best.

One thing I notice being the rice paper is so thin when fresh printed the paper is very wet a curls but over time this subsides. One this can be reduced is to change the DPI from 2880 to 1440. as the printer will put less ink on the paper.

2880 DPI                                                                          1440 DPI

The tones of the colours are slightly effected with the change in DPI they're not as deep but I don't think this is much to be bothered about but also after a bit of time the curling goes away.

Im happy I had the chance to try the paper out I'm defiantly going to print on the paper I might have to also add a plank sheet separating the pages so you cant see the below image.