All about paper

When starting to plan a print project it is important to know what kind of paper you would like to use. Your printer will likely ask if you have a preference of coated or uncoated stock. At this point, you might be asking yourself; “What is the difference?”

We sat down with Drake Ryman of Anchor Paper to get the scoop on the difference between coated and uncoated paper.

According to Drake the difference is simple, all paper starts the same. Coated paper just has a coating on it. All paper is porous even though it may feel smooth. The coating acts as a varnish to help fill in the pores. Think of it like putting varnish on a wooden deck. You put varnish on a wooden deck to make the texture smooth and protect it from the elements. Paper isn’t much different. Coated paper is smoother, absorbs less ink, generally has a sharper printed image, and is more durable.

This doesn’t mean that all uncoated papers are not smooth. A technological advancement in the paper industry called calendaring has been used to create ultra smooth uncoated papers.

Knowing The Details Of Your Project Will Help You Select The Right Paper 

Consider these 4 factors when deciding whether to use coated or uncoated paper:

• The Purpose or Function of Your Project
  Know what your project will be used for. Will your audience need to fill it out or just read it? Some coated papers can be difficult to write on.
  
• The Desired Aesthetic and Design
  Consider how coated and uncoated papers will look with your overall design. The type of paper can change the look and feel of a piece. For example, sometimes using an uncoated heavier weight textured paper can give a more prestigious appeal to a design.
  
• How your piece will be distributed
  Are you handing your piece out or are you sending it in the mail? Know how that coating might affect the mail process.
  
• Your Budget
  Coated paper isn’t necessarily more or less expensive than uncoated paper. It all depends on what you decided you want for weight, texture, and feel. Knowing what you can spend will help narrow down your choices.

Docusoft provides a range of Inkejt printers, multifunction printers, dotmatrix printers, colour printers, large format printers, scanners, ink cartridges, toner, printer paper, copiers, office supplies,routers and softwares available to buy online in Australia.

We also specialise in wide format printer and wide format paper and ideal for printing architectural and engineering documents, posters, and signs. 

We carry brand products of Canon, Konica Miolta, Brother, HP, Oki, Richo, Fuji Xerox, Samsung and Epson. 

Source: www.wallacecarlson.com

The Art of Choosing the Right Paper

Choosing the right paper for your printed media can be tricky. Paper tells about the function of the product, it's feeling and quality. Therefore it's a crucial part of the overall experience of your final product. Best of all is to start thinking about the choice of paper even before you start your work on the computer, not only to get the feeling right but also because of printing issues and costs. You can then optimize the production and design according to the paper of your choice. Here are some of the things to keep in mind about the use of paper for your printed media production.

The Paper Choice

To choose between the function and quality of a paper isn't easy. Sometimes you'll find a paper that you really want to work with, but in the end you realize that if you choose it, the production cost will go up significantly. This is usually just a concern when you work with a bigger production and need a lot of paper, then the price will escalate quickly. But even smaller projects can have problems with cost, especially if you choose unusual inks or post processing methods. So choosing a paper that's cheap, but still good for your product, can be tricky. It's therefore recommended that in the beginning of your project, you take your time and think though a few issues:

• What is your final product? It can be a book, poster, flyer, business card, etc.
• How long would you like the durability of the product to last? A book that will be read throughout the years should definitely be planned for a longer durability than a one day flyer.
• What feeling do you want your product to give the receiver? Should it be fancy? Cheap? Solid? Traditional?
• What kind of material will the product be handling? Will it be spread after spread with large photos? Or a textbook?
• After you've answered these questions you can take a look at the different elements that can be crucial for your paper choice.

      Different kinds of printed products by Shutterblog.

What Distinguishes Different Papers?

Coated or Uncoated?

The decision to use either coated or uncoated paper is probably the one choice that will affect the overall feeling of your product the most. So choose carefully. Coated papers have china clay or other kinds of coating applied to one or both sides. It comes in a variety of smoothness, like matte, semi-matte or silk, and gloss.

All of the above except matte coated papers are usually best for printing photographs and other kinds of art. Why is that? Because of the paper quality the ink in the printer doesn't get absorbed by the paper fibers but stays at the top. This gives brighter colors and the paper a somewhat glossy finish.

The uncoated paper, which has a rough, natural feel to it, is preferred before coated paper for productions that include lots of text. With this paper the printer ink gets inside the top layer of the paper and sinks into the fibers beneath. The thing to consider is that a glossy coated paper reflects light more than uncoated paper does. This can sometimes make it harder to read longer texts. Still the final decision should be all about what feeling you want to achieve with your product.

Usually coated paper is used for:

• Photography
• Illustrations
• Things that should "pop"

Often Uncoated Paper is Used For:

• Books
• Daily Magazines

You've probably already noticed that all kinds of in betweens exist when it comes to the choice of coated or uncoated paper. One example is that the use of uncoated paper has increased as an alternative for catalogues and brochures to give them a more unique and exclusive feel.

Example of a coated paper photo book. Peter Lik limited edition Sporit of America.

Example of uncoated paper photo book. Denis Cotter's Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me.

Thickness and Weight

The weight of a paper is tricky to write about. It can be measured in a couple of different ways depending on the country you're working in. Two of the most used are grams per square metre or the pound weight of a 500-sheet ream of 17" x 22" bond paper. For different types of paper the size of the basis ream may differ resulting in vastly different weights. For example, a ream of 20#, 8.5 × 11 bond paper weighs 5 lb, because it has been cut from a larger sheet into four pieces.

Note: Paper weight is sometimes stated using the "#" symbol. For example, "20#" means "20 pounds per basis ream of 500 sheets."

As for the thickness - in general, the more a sheet of paper weights, the thicker and/or stiffer it is. This is often measured by caliper, which is typically given in thousandths of an inch.

Some Guidelines:

• 20~24# - Standard weight paper
• 24~28# - For ordinary posters
• 80~100# - Preferred weight for most business cards

                         17"x 22" paper = 20#. 1/4 of this paper is 8.5" x 11" i.e. 5 lb.

Opacity

A paper's opacity describes the amount of light which is transmitted through it. This determines how much printing will be seen through the reverse side of a sheet. Complete opacity is 100% which means that no light can pass through, while a lower percentage lets more light through. Opacity is important to have in mind when printing booklets, as a sheet with good opacity will prevent ”show through text” when printing on both sides. A paper's opacity can increase or decrease depending on the use of different fillers, but also by its weight, whiteness or coating.

Example of page opacity by Andoka des Bois.

Brightness

The brightness measures the percentage of a wavelength of blue light that a sheet reflects. It's typically expressed on a scale of 1 to 100 with 100 being the brightest. Most papers reflect 60-90% of light. The brightness of a paper can effect readability, the perception of ink color and the contrast between light and dark hues.

Some last things to consider

• Acid-free papers are not as yellowing as other papers.
• Uncoated papers aren’t always cheaper than coated.
• Colored papers are usually more expensive than white.
• The post processing can affect which paper you’ll be able to use.

Poster Production

For art posters, use preferably a silk or gloss coated paper. Exactly which one should depend on the amount of photography and illustration work on the poster. For brighter, more saturated colors it also is good to use a fairly coated paper so that the colors really pop. The coated paper will also be resistant to dirt and smudges, and sometimes even for simple physical damage.

The weight is an important aspect to think about while deciding the right paper for your poster. If your poster will be put outside you should use a durable paper that will not fade in the sun. Papers with greater weight will hold better against wind and rain, and therefore it will stay as you put it up for a longer time than a thin paper. A good reference is to use 24# or 28# paper for posters. The bigger the poster, the thicker the paper should be for best durability.

For those who want their poster to last a really long time, there are a couple of alternatives with a nice price tag of course. You could print the poster using tarpaulin, which is basically a plastic mesh. Another option is plastic printing. It’s not really paper, but a good alternative for those couple of posters which should last for months.

               Poster photo by Jacob Schere.

Conclusion

Always start by defining your final product. Is there's anything special you should think about in terms of printing or post production? The next step is to choose the function and quality you want your paper to have. Take your time to think through if you want coated or uncoated paper, what weight and opacity you wish to use.

One last tip is to always check with your local printing service. Ask them what paper they recommend and what they have in stock at the moment. This can, in some cases, help you out getting away with a better result and a much cheaper paper.

Need help call us at 02 8372 0000 www.docusoft.com.au

Docusoftonline is a specialist with large format paper and plotter paper. We have plotter paper for Canon plotters, HP plotters and Epson plotters. Wide format plotter paper rolls available in all shapes, sizes and grades. Bond paper, coated paper and different types of photo paper available in all different sizes. We also have specialised wide format paper ideal for printing architectural and engineering documents, posters, and signs. We stock satin paper, clear films, canvas and matt photo paper as well. If you are looking for a wide format paper supplier then browse through our docusoftonline.com website. Next day shipping. 

source: www.design.tutsplus.com

Authour: Carolina Hansson

Chinese invention of Paper

Since the invention of writing, people had been trying to come up with something easier to write on than papyrus or parchment, and also something easier  and cheaper to make. But it took 3000 years to come up with paper! Paper was invented around 100 BC in China. In 105 AD, under the Han Dynasty emperor Ho-Ti, a government official in China named Ts'ai Lun was the first to start a paper-making industry.

Lun seems to have made his paper by mixing finely chopped mulberry bark and hemp rags with water, mashing it flat, and then pressing out the water and letting it dry in the sun. He may have based his idea on bark cloth, which was very common in China and also made from mulberry bark. Ts'ai Lun's paper was a big success, and began to be used all over China. With paper available, Buddhist monks in China began to work on ways of mass-producing prayers. By 650 ADthey were block-printing prayers.

Even after people in China began to use paper, it took another thousand years before people were using paper all over Eurasia. By the 400s AD, people in India were also making paper. With the expansion of the Islamic Empire into Pakistan about 700 AD, people in the Abbasid Caliphate also began to use paper. For the traders of the Silk Road, paper had a big advantage: it absorbed ink, so you couldn't erase it. That made forgery harder. At first they bought their paper from China, Central Asia, and India. But by 800 AD Islamic manufacturers were making their own paper. As paper reached West Asia, people began to make it into books, instead of the scrolls that people used in China and India. That plan spread eastward, and by about 1000 AD, people were making books even in China and India. To go with the new book format, printers in China invented movable wooden type.

Europeans were still using parchment, or buying paper at high prices from Silk Road traders. But that soon changed. By 1250 AD, paper-making technology reached Italy, and the Italians made good paper and sold it all over Europe. In 1338, French monks began to make their own paper. Europeans used water wheels to power paper mills, so they could make paper more cheaply. By the 1350s, Europeans were selling paper to people in North Africa and Mamluk Egypt and West Asia.

By 1411 - nearly a millennium and a half after it was invented - people in Germany began to produce their own rag paper. Once they had learned to make paper, they became more interested in also learning about Chinese printing, and a man called Gutenberg produced the first printed Bible in 1453. (This rag paper was still much more expensive than modern paper, which is made from wood with chemicals added).

By this time, people in the country of the Aztecs (modern Mexico) had also, independently, invented paper. Their paper was made out of agarve plant fibers, and people used it to make books.

Meanwhile, in China people were using paper in more and more different ways. They were using paper for kites, and even for toilet paper!

Authour: KE Carr

Source: www.quatr.us

Docusoft provides a range of printers, scanners, ink cartridges, toner, printer paper, copiers, office supplies,routers and softwares available to buy online in Australia.
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