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Watercolor Paper Printing Tips
Our watercolor papers have been specially treated or "sized" (usually with starch or gelatin) to help reduce dot gain (wicking of the ink through the cellulose cotton fibers). The sizing greatly reduces dot gain, but it will not totally eliminate it, as a coated paper will -- but then a coating would also take away the texture and beauty of a watercolor paper. Without a coating, you'll have trouble getting the rich blacks you would on a glossy coated inkjet paper. And even with the sizing, you'll still experience about a 15% dot gain with most watercolor papers. This dot gain will cause your prints to look a little dark, muddy and flat in contrast. Your shadows or dark areas of an image will often get even darker. You can greatly minimize the affects of dot gain by following these steps (the following steps are customized for Somerset Velvet but should work as a starting point with all of our watercolor papers):
Try our easy to use"Advanced Settings"
- Choose "Print" in the "File" menu. The "Main" print window will appear. Within the "Mode" box, you have a choice of an "Automatic" (default) or an "Advanced" button -- Choose "Advanced". You should now also click on the "More Settings" button (The following dialog boxes are for the Macintosh Epson Driver for the Photo 700, your dialog boxes may look slightly different, especially on Windows, but will have the same settings).
- A new window will appear. Select "Fine - 720 dpi" for your "Print Quality"
- Select "Plain Paper" from the "Media Type". This setting produces the best separation of tones for most watercolor papers.
- Next to "Ink", choose "Color"
- Next to "Halftoning", select "Error Diffusion"
- The "MicroWeave" box should already be checked, if not, check it. Super MicroWeave is usually not available at this print quality or dpi (720 x 720).
- Check the "Finest Detail" box.
- On the top, right side of this window, under "Color Adjustment", select the "Automatic" Mode (default).
- Do not adjust the "Brightness (leave at "0"). Do not adjust the "Contrast" slider (leave at "0"). Contrast can be adjusted later if desired.
- Move the "Saturation" slider anywhere from a +5 to a +25 (I suggest starting at a +15). Increasing the saturation reduces the volume of ink going to the "Black" ink nozzles.
- Move the "Cyan" slider anywhere from a -5 to a -20 (I suggest starting with a -10).
- Move the "Magenta" and "Yellow" sliders to the same value as you have given the "Cyan". You have now reduced the volume of cyan, magenta and yellow ink going to those nozzles. This reduction in ink volume will help to reduce the effects of dot gain.
- Click on the "O.K." button; the window will close, and you will be back to the main print window; and you can now click the "Print" button. You also have the option of saving the settings from the previous window (once you find a combination that works for each watercolor paper).
Use the "Back" function of your browser to return to the page you came from.
Try our easy to use "Advanced Settings"
NOTE: Fine Art Papers are thick! Printer loading and
feeding instructions.
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