Tecco Paper Review - Buy Tecco Paper

For those of you that wrote the book “Everything about ICC profiling” you may want to go straight to the conclusion, for the rest of us I thought it may be helpful to cover some of the points that a lot of web content, reviews and editorials assume that we have all passed our “Microsoft certification course “and have no need of how to install ICC profiles and such what-not.

Printer manufactures have very small margins on their actual hardware opting for making their margins on the continued purchases of paper and ink consumables. Take the humble ink cartridge as an example...........On one of my mainstream home work printers, the RRP of a single cartridge Averages at £12.99 for .....Wait for it ........11mls of ink.................That works out to £1180.91 per litre, makes petrol or even gold seem pretty cheap doesn’t it. Paper mark-up by these big name brands is albeit not as high still carries substantial mark-up. Where third party print media manufactures do just that..............make only Paper! So the media quality to price point is a lot better.........higher quality for the same money.....Rocket science! No!

  So their R&D goes into the advancement of their product often resulting in cutting edge print media at a comparable price to the paper you’re probably using right now but with superior coatings and substrates. But to get the best out of them your printer needs to know what to do................This is where ICC or “Print profiles” come in. The Printer and software you purchased at PC universe or Currie world will have quite a few profiles already installed for you to use covering the most common papers on the shelve but especially their own. But how do you add say a Tecco ICC profile to Photoshop, Lightroom or your current printer package for that matter?

  There will always be minor variations to the installation of a print profile be it operating system or installer type,  but the principle will basically remains the same. I always like to work like a running stream..........as in choosing the path of least resistance.

     In the perfect world and your billion dollar bank account you would profile your 90”U238 NASA monitor and calibrate your 0.001 picolitre printer with custom print profiles matching the paper to your equipment exactly with your new X-rite “Colormunki Photo” colorimeter, But I’m going to assume that the patents aren’t showing a return yet and we’ll do it the old fashioned way.

The Tecco website is excellent and easy to move around so finding the ICC profiles is a no brainer as long as you click on the “English” tab. Choose the printer in the list if its supported, Epsom seem to have extensive support with HP and Canon only showing just a couple to three which I’m positive will be rectified as demand increases. If your specific printer is not supported and your Colormunki’s at your mum’s house choose the profile that matches your printer the closest and if all else fails choose a profile you already have ........Matt for Matt, semi-gloss for semi-gloss and try it out......some only need minor tweaks

Installing the Profile

Assuming you’ve already purchased your Tecco media, go to the appropriate ICC paper description and file in the required fields to get to the downloadable files, for me I chose the ZIP file and hit download...................Only small at about 1meg.............Now unpack your zip to your desk-top.................. The file now on your desktop double click to open............Now here’s the hard bit, right click on the ICC profile.........Up the top will be “Install Profile”.......click and your done! If you’d like to check, open your printer dialog box in the control panel.........click on “printer” ...........then printer “Properties”.................Next colour management tab..............then colour management box.................choose all profiles tab and scroll down to ICC profiles near the bottom. I’m on Windows 7 but from memory XP is very similar if not the same. If it’s not there I’d be very surprised and you probably have a configuration problem with your operating system requiring a manual install of the profile......contact God for support.

So let’s jump in.

One of the frustrating things about ordering paper on the Internet is the damage that can be sustained on the corners rendering half of the photo media useless. Tecco have addressed this problem with the trial Pack that I received being competently bubble wrapped but most importantly, a dedicated lidded box protecting the contents and corners with a double layer of cardboard on all four corners.  The trial Pack contains six different print media inkjet papers (3 of each) with a total of 18 pieces interleafed with a data sheet giving a reasonable cross-section of the media available from Tecco. With 26 choices of ink jet paper the trial Pack is a good starting point to narrow down your criteria for the media to suit your photographic needs. The paper on first inspection seems to be of exceptional quality with no variations in surface texture; paper edges were clean and sharp........Tip!  As most printers now require you to load your print media face down in the print tray............ place a piece of A4 or A3 paper in the bottom of the tray to protect the sometimes delicate print surface in the bottom of the stack.

The first few prints I used a photo of my daughter, at 14 megapixel with pin sharp eyes and a little softening in PhaseOnes “capture one” to render skin tones as accurately as possible. I used this photo as she has the most platinum blonde hair proving to be most difficult to reproduce accurately on most print media.

I choose the PM230 Matt to be the first cab off the rank as I though this media would give me the most problems,....Stated a Matt, It more closely resembles a semi-canvas more than a Matt paper.

The Tecco ICC profile was just not close enough and I had to resort to HP Matt paper profiles after first trying Photoshop managed colours......This proved to be as close as I was going to get it without creating my own X-Rite profiles but having said that besides being a few stops short (to dark) was remarkably close with colour just about spot on  needing only a slight adjustments across most of the papers fed through the printer using the HP profiles . Print quality was high enough to form an opinion of just how high a quality this media truly is compared to mainstream media available in this country presently.

  The PM230 matt surprised me with its ability to hold sharpness in the eyes while displaying excellent colour gamut for a mat paper portrait, drying times were almost instant and ink usage was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be .I think this paper holds great potential for high contrast B&Ws .All of this range of photo inkjet media is “acid free” classified meaning a life of several hundred years for archival purposes is possible under ideal storage conditions.

The BT270 Baryt (To me a semi-high gloss paper) for me is the one that really stood out being very close to my proffered paper finish. Probably one of the most flattest, triple coated, fibre based papers I’ve seen to date, exhibiting razor sharp quality with to die for contrast for a high gloss paper............Definitely a gallery quality paper and on my list to profile and use in competition. Surface durability is also unusually high being the main problem with my current favourite gloss paper, requiring three or four heavy handed passes with my toothbrush test before any visible marks became apparent. Worthwhile changing to with this point alone.

The PL285 Luster ( very close to an oyster type finish ) Also deserves special mention, exceptional colour consistent quality displaying the widest colour gamut I’ve seen on a pearl or oyster paper making it  Ideal for large format prints. Even under a powered 40x scope, these photo-media papers have extremely high surface consistency which translates to high, consistent image quality repeatable from print to print. Drying times of all media tested outstrips anything I’ve used to date

The other media types in the pack include:

PPG250 Pearl-Gloss

PUW285 Glossy Ultra White

BP210 Buttenpapier ..............As a point of interest the numbers denoted after the alfa code is also the g/m²  Now an EU standard,  that is grams (by weight) per one square metre of media not to be confused with GSM which is I’m glad a dying standard fraught with misinformation and unscrupulous people praying  on the misinformed based on a ream of paper be it A4x25 sheets or 500 poster sized sheets of tissue paper can both have the same GSM designation with no relation to paper thickness what so ever.

Conclusion

 All six media types performed above my expectations which is why I’m not going to bore you with the above three that I missed, As they did perform just as well to varying degrees on the positive side of print quality.  But what I will say is the endless hunt for paper from several different sources’ for me is now over.  From one source I can now choose from over 26 different types of media from a truly canvas like matt media to a glossy paper that performs like printable glass to suit just about every print job I may come up against. Be it A4, A3 or roll,  The quality is superior to anything currently available in the UK in this price range goes without saying.

You will get a bump in print quality using this paper but to gain exceptional quality improvement proper and correct print profiling is the key, be it using Tecco support supplied ICC profiles or splashing out on a critical necessary investment and that’s your own profiling equipment generating your own custom profiles to suit any and all printer/ink/media combinations. When that happens you can enjoy what I do and that’s hitting the print button once and walking away to dinner knowing that the one print when you return will be exactly the same as what’s on your carefully calibrated monitor and with this paper,  consistent true gallery quality.

Aussie Allan

 Buy Tecco Paper Here

View the Tutorial where Tecco show you how to download and install Tecco profiles.

P.S.............Will be swapping the keyboard for a camera for a few weeks off the coast of Thailand, hope to come back with some great material.  (Hope! ) If I can get near an internet cafe and I can get the kid on the Battery bike to peddle fast enough I’ll send a update of my travels..........Biggest festival on the Thai calendar starts on the 10^th for 3 days, “Songkran” meaning water festival, got myself a waterproof 10mp camera for some close up fun..........Should be a blast, that and the Elephants in full make-up and dress ..........Had no idea there where so many gay elephants in one area, I need to travel more.