Materials

We thought you might like to learn more about the materials we choose to use here at Metro so we’ve put together this list, including the main qualities of each material and links for further reading.

Acid-free archival card

We use solid core board made from alpha cellulose providing very high degrees of protection. Our board passes the Silver Tarnish test making it suitable for mounting precious photographs. With a ph value of 7.5 even after 200 years, this board offers a very high protection for the future.

Baryta Paper

Baryta is a special barium sulphate coating that is traditionally applied to a fibre photographic paper base prior to coating with the emulsion layers. The technical benefits of the Baryta layer include greater detail and definition, extended tonal range and excellent archival properties. In addition, Baryta coated fibre papers have a unique look and feel which have become the standard for fine art photographers worldwide.
This paper, also described a fibre-based, has been popular as a traditional paper for black and white printing for many decades due to it’s exceptional archival properties. At Metro we offer black and white photographic fibre-based prints from both optical and Lambda outputs, and also Baryta inkjet prints. The papers we have chosen for our Baryta paper Giclée prints are the following:

Sihl High Gloss 330gsm (gloss)
Harman Photo 320gsm paper
Fuji Fine Art Museum 300gsm

One of the main reasons for using Baryta paper with inkjet printing is the ability to use photo black pigment inks. To read a review of the new Baryta papersclick here.

Dibond®

An archival quality, aluminium composite display material made of two sheets of thin aluminium with a thermoplastic core. It is valued for its lightweight rigidity, being only one third of the weight of solid aluminium. Dibond typically comes with a white coating, to give the reverse of your pictures a smooth, clean look.

Fibre based paper

Also known as baryta papers, fibre based paper has the photographic emulsion coated directly onto the fibres of the paper so, in processing, chemistry soaks into the paper making it much slower to process, wash and dry. FB papers also react much better than RC papers to toning and other special effects, and are available in a much greater variety of specialty finishes. We recommend FB papers for their archival permanence and for producing the most beautiful fine art and exhibition prints. Read more about Ilford’s fibre based paper for Handprinting and fibre-based paper for Lambda printing further down the page.

Foamboard

Foamboard is a lightweight mounting material used for large hanging signs and displays or as a smooth and rigid substrate for framing photographs. We use Kapa foamboard, known for its aluminium foil surface which adds a layer of protection for photographic paper. Kapa is available in 5 mm and 10 mm sheets.

Foamex

Foamex is solid black PVC mounting material used for simple, non archival purposes such as exhibition prints requiring a durable substrate for touring shows or public exhibitions. It is available in a range of thicknesses. At Metro we use 3mm and 5mm Foamex only.

Fuji Crystal Archive paper

Fuji Crystal Archive paper uses optimized Silver Halide Crystals for laser exposure. Producing excellent prints from laser printers, as well as other digital exposure systems and conventional photographic printers, this paper is considered to be the industry standard for fine art printing, offering vivid color reproduction ranging from subtle shades of green, to vivid blues and reds. The paper exhibits high image stability during long-term dark storage and excellent light storage stability. For more information visit Fuji’s website or read a review of the new Fuji Crystal Archive paper here.

Fine Art Museum Baryte Paper 300gsm paper

This is a 300 gsm fibre paper made by Fuji, with similar look to traditional baryte type papers. It has typically high Dmax, very low overall errors and quite exceptional skin tone accuracies and acheives stunning results for black and white or sepia toned images.

Hahnemühle German Etching Textured 310gsm paper

Founded in 1584, Hahnemühle have a 400 year history of papermaking; manufacturing papers for traditional and digital artists as well as industrial papers in Germany. Very few companies can look back with pride over such a long and uninterrupted tradition. Today, as in the past, they make beautiful paper from clear spring water and top quality fibre.
This is one of Hahnemühle’s genuine artist papers, mould made, 100%acid free paper with an exceptionally smooth surface.

For more information about visit their website

Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm paper

Founded in 1584, Hahnemühle have a 400 year history of papermaking; manufacturing papers for traditional and digital artists as well as industrial papers in Germany. Very few companies can look back with pride over such a long and uninterrupted tradition. Today, as in the past, they make beautiful paper from clear spring water and top quality fibre.
This is one of Hahnemühle’s genuine artist papers made of 100 % cotton rag paper, specifically designed for fine art photographic work .

For more information about Hahnemühle visit their website

Harman Photo 320gsm paper

This Warm tone paper employs photo fibre Baryta and boasts a fine art feel, enhanced by the paper’s weight. At 320gsm, the GLOSS FB AL WARMTONE enjoys a strong resemblance to a traditional photographic print.
Aside from these benefits, the GLOSS FB AL WARMTONE also employs a unique nanoporous Alumina coating. This ensures a smooth gloss finish that really brings both colour and black and white images to life. An additional feature is the use of new and revolutionary anti-curl technology, which ensures the paper lies completely flat, both before and after printing.

For more information, visit the Harman website

ILFORD FB paper

ILFOBROM GALERIE FB is a double weight 255g/m2 fibre based paper. Prints made on this paper have deep, rich blacks, brilliant whites and an excellent tonal rendition. It is suitable for a wide range of applications that require a fine quality printing paper, such as, archival prints for museums, collections and exhibitions; prestige applications which focus attention on both the look and the feel of the print. To read in more depth about photographic paper types, visit Ilford’s website

ILFORD Galerie FB Digital paper

HARMAN GALERIE FB DIGITAL is a real Baryta/Fibre base photographic paper based upon traditional B&W silver halide technology. It has panchromatic sensitivity optimised for tricolour laser enlargers such as Durst Lambda and Océ Lightjet.
GALERIE FB DIGITAL has excellent contrast, sharpness and surface finish that will give superb continuous tone black and white images or text from digital files prepared from either black and white or colour film negatives or positives, prints and digital originals. The results are equal to those seen when using conventional black and white printing materials and exposing equipment. Read more ...

Visit Ilford’s website

ILFORD Multigrade IV RC Deluxe paper

A premium quality B&W resin-coated paper with a bright base tint. We think it’s great for contact prints and test printing before a more expensive fibre-based paper. Plenty of our clients like to use this for experimentation as well. It offers a cool to neutral tone. To read in more depth about photographic paper types , visit Ilford’s website

Kodak Duraclear and Duratrans

Duratrans is a translucent-base material designed for producing large transparencies for displays on light boxes without built-in diffusers, such as the large backlit advertising displays on bus stops, for example. Duraclear is simply the clear-base version of this, designed for use on light boxes that have diffusers built-in. Both these materials are especially suited to large exhibition or advertising displays as they’re very hardwearing.

Kodak Professional Ultra Endura Paper

An all-round winner for colour negative printing as it’s possible to print directly onto it from both film and digital media. Endura is a resin coated paper and gives us extraordinarily rich colors with great flesh tones, as well as the most intense blacks. It has top notch archival quality and Kodak state print longevity is up to 100 years in typical home display and 200 years in dark storage.

Visit Kodak’s website

Fuji Crystal Pearl Archive paper

Incandescent beads in the emulsion of this resin-coated paper give pro-quality gloss prints with a shimmering pearl-like base. Pearl prints are made from your digital data and we’d recommend the material for both colour and B&W work.
Marking a new era in the printing of high image and glossy digital photos, Pearl paper boasts unrivalled colour and highlight definition, offering sharper images and more accurate and vibrant colour reproduction. Pearl-like crystals give these silver halide color prints a specific luster.
Pearl paper boasts a wide tonal range with a rich textural quality, and offers amazingly accurate colour reproduction. It has also been designed to suppress colour paper fogging, ensuring that whites remain pure in unexposed areas.

Pigment ink system

The new Ultrachrome K3 archival inks and a large range of papers have made inkjet prints an alternative to photographic printing that offers increased flexibility.
The eight ink colour set produces very fine tonal graduations and black and white prints use three levels of black ink density. Detail is held in highlights and shadows reveal more detail and produce denser blacks up to a DMax of 2.3.
Traditional photographic monochrome papers are produced on a ‘baryta’ base, which gives these papers a rich quality art feel. These paper bases up to 330GSM in weight are now available to use with inkjet printers and produce high quality, richly saturated semi-matt pigment prints. We also stock a gloss heavyweight paper. Because the ink coats the papers in layers, a slight relief can be seen on the surface of prints, giving them an almost 3D feel.

Mounting

Mounting describes a process of using adhesive to fix a print to a solid rigid material, known as a substrate. The type of Mounting we use at Metro uses large rollers to seal photographic prints to a substrate, as opposed to other warm techniques, such as heat mounting. Although mounting to card was common for framing photographs for some hundred years, other modern materials such as foamboard, Foamex and aluminium have not been tested for their archival stability. The process of permanently attaching print to substrate is irreversible; leaving some photographers increasingly concerned over the archival qualities of the materials (the technique itself is not archival as it cannot be undone).
For this reason, materials such as MDF and foamboard may be favoured for their durability, but would not be considered archival as they contain chemicals which will eventually colour or even disintegrate photographic paper. These materials are suggested for travelling shows where prints are not for sale. Where the archival longevity of a print is paramount, framing is the only truly archival technique of presenting a photograph, but materials such as aluminium or Dibond may be used where a frame is not desired for aesthetic reasons or those of weight.

Resin-coated papers

With ‘resin coated’ papers, the paper is essentially encapsulated in a plastic envelope and the emulsion stuck on the outside of the resin. This drastically reduces processing and drying time compared to the more traditional fibre based papers. RC papers are also cheaper, so they’re great for experimentation and for getting quick, good quality results.

Sihl High Gloss 330gsm paper

The Swiss-based Sihl group, part of the worldwide Italian-owned Diatec organisation, is well known in the UK for its wide format products and boasts a 100 year history of paper coating and 500 years of paper manufacturing in Europe.
The High Gloss 330gsm paper is one of Sihls new heavy weight range using special SuperDry coating technology for inkjet photo paper, to guarantee colour saturation, a wide range of tonal values and contrasts and high maximum thicknesses.
Sihl paper scientists have carried out special accelerated permanence testing which estimate P3 products will offer up to 125 fade-free years under certain conditions.

Read a review of Sihl High Gloss paper