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Review: Ilford Galerie Smooth Gloss and Pearl Papers

Right-Brain Analysis

One can stare at color graphs all day and speculate about how a paper performs, but the real proof is in the printing. Thusly, I selected a group of images ranging from richly colored, almost-unrealistic clouds to deep green foliage to dried golden-and-wheat-hued grasses to skin tones, and spent some time printing and staring. I settled on the custom profiles generated by my printer rather than the factory profiles provided by the respective paper manufacturers or HP; in particular, I preferred the appearance of my printer’s profiles to Ilford’s.

First off, I quickly discovered that Ilford Galerie Smooth Gloss and Pearl are essentially indistinguishable from each other color-wise. This is no surprise, as the only difference is the finish; both use the same inkjet receptive coating (IRC). As I personally prefer a luster or pearl paper to full gloss, I focused on luster papers for my print comparisons. To get my biases out front, Breathing Color Elegance Luster has been my current choice for photo reproductions.

Measure Twice, Print Once

Second, no matter how good a paper is, you still need to rely on color management to get the best results. And even then, the print may not match your uncompensated monitor. I got ahead of myself and made my first test print immediately after profiling, and was disappointed at how the printed image was duller than what I was seeing on screen. Then I remembered my own advice about using Photoshop’s View > Proof Colors:

The image in the upper left is a screen capture of the original photo. The other three images have Proof Colors enabled. In the upper right, View > Proof Setup > Custom has its profile set to Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl - note how it appears a touch more dull. The profiled paper in the lower left is Breathing Color Vibrance Luster; it has similar issues as the Ilford. In the lower right is Epson Premium Luster; it is a tiny bit brighter than the other two papers, but still not as bright as the original image.

If you have trouble seeing the difference with this surreal image, here’s one that’s a bit more natural:

Again, the image on the left is a screen capture of the original photo, while the image on the right is a screen cap of Photoshop’s rendition of what Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl should look like printed - a tiny bit bit darker, which turned out to be true.

As a result, with Proof Colors enabled I applied Adjustment Layers above the images to pull them back to what the original image looked like. The printed results now looked much closer to my original intention. But Proof Colors is hardly the final word; there were still some subtle but important differences in the different papers.

The Eyes Have At It

Here are a few admittedly subjective observations. In the cloud image, the Ilford Pearl had just slightly less contrast in the darker areas where the clouds swirled from color to gray or black compared to the Breathing Color Elegance Luster. This correlates to the ever so slightly reduced dark gamut range we saw in the graphs. On the other hand, color was excellent, with the Breathing Color showing slightly better violets than the Ilford - but again, we’re talking slight differences.  Both performed better than the Epson Luster, which lacked oranges and therefore apparent saturation. In the Epson’s favor, it was slightly brighter; this may be due the brighter white tone of the unprinted sheet.

A photo of the prints made by Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl on the left, and Breathing Color Vibrance Luster on the right. Note the ever-so-slightly deeper contrast in the darker areas on the right with the Breathing Color paper, as well as a touch more red in the violets.

In the vacation home scene, the Ilford Pearl yielded more pleasing foliage, being slightly more yellow compared to the Breathing Color’s blue tones. Again, the Epson was lighter, and lacking in strength in the oranges. Both the Breathing Color and Epson yielded deeper gradients than the Ilford in the skies.

On other images with grasses and flesh tones, the Ilford was the overall winner, with near identical color as the Breathing Color I normally prefer, but slightly more contrast in the lighter areas of the Ilford print. The lack-of-orange issue really hindered the Epson in both flesh tones and golden grasses when compared to the Ilford (and Breathing Color).

A photo of an image compilation printed on the Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl on top, and Epson Premium Luster below. The Ilford Pearl had a nicer (and more accurate) range of tones in the grasses and foliage, while the Epson (and in a separate print, the Breathing Color) had slightly deeper tones in the blue sky.

In short, the Ilford and my preferred Breathing Color papers were a very close match - at least for my particular printer (HP Z3100). If pressed, I would have to say the Ilford was slightly weaker in darker contrasting areas, but slightly stronger in lighter contrasting areas. Breathing Color may have a slight edge in saturated colors like violets, but Ilford had the edge in accuracy of foliage, as well as ever so slightly in flesh tones and similar less-saturated colors. Both outshone the Epson Premium Luster Photo 250, which is also the most expensive of the three; I’d be curious if Epson changed their coating with their new slightly-heavier 260 to make it more receptive to the HP. And speaking of weights, remember that the Ilford papers are slightly heavier and thicker than many other photo papers. In short, I’d say the Ilford Galerie Smooth line would be an excellent choice, especially for realistic nature work and portraiture; to get even more out of it, try a slight increase in contrast in the shadows of your images before printing.

Our photographs and artwork, as well as content contained in our books, videos, blogs, and articles for other sites are all copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed. Other examples of my mixed media work may be found on my artist web site.

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