On newyears eve I was on a last minute visit to my local photo supply store (schillers in St Louis Mo) and saw that they had 20sheet 8.5x11 boxes of Hahnemuhle glossy fine art baryta, and after looking at the sample photos they had on display I couldn't resist buying a box, (not cheap at approx 28.00).But I'm still in the evaluation process of my epson r300 pigment CIS and decided I needed to include it in my testing.It's described as "Gloss", but it's not Smooth, or Slick gloss, But definately shiny.The tooth of the paper is not pearl, or luster, it's a little more coarse than pearl, and has a random look, just like real paper.I Printed a portrait of a girl standing in front of a tree, (scroll down to see the post which includes her photo) and made sure a few small areas of the bark were close to pure black. For me how the darkest blacks look is very important since back in my B+W film printing days, I always liked to have at least a small portion of every print go all the way to pure black. I've noticed with some papers and my current printer that the Ink will "pile up" in the pure black areas. not with this paper. holding the finished photo at any angle reveals no change in the surface appearance. I know newer printers have a gloss optimizer, I'm not sure how it could improve on the surface of this paper. I don't have any way to actually measure the black on this photo, I'd say it's as close as you'll get on this type of paper. The color of the paper is bright white neutral in my opinion. I can't see any color cast. You can take that last part with a grain of salt since my system isn't profiled, And I may not be as picky as some people.Over all conclusion: When I hold this photo in my hands, and examine it as close as I can I would say that it's as good as or better than any traditional photograph I've ever seen. The original image was captured with a Pentax K10d and a manual focus 28mm 2.8 pentax "A" series lens. 10mb raw image processed and printed from photoshop CS3. One thing I noticed was that when I took a fresh sheet out of the box the surface had an almost tacky feel to it. By the next day it seemed like it had dried. Actually I took another fresh sheet out of the box to compare, and while there seemed to be difference it was only slight. So would I reccomend this paper? yes, but not for everyday printing. only for those special photos that require that extra touch. If I get around to printing a Black and White photo with it, I'll do an update. The photo at the top? that's just one of my favorites from last summers vacation
