It’s wonderful that we are seeing new and better papers, more variety and getting ever closer to the Holy Grail of silver glossy air dried, and great new matte papers too. It has to be said though that it is frustrating to open a box of paper and find most if not all sheets damaged, or defects in the paper on every sheet, or scuffing from the sheets rubbing against each other in shipping such that the surface is destroyed. This is particularly apparent with the new glossier art papers.

In the days of silver paper and darkrooms, paper came wrapped in either heavy lightproof black paper or in equivalent plastic. Bashed corners were rare. Surface defects were unknown.

Many manufacturers or merchants are guilty of packaging in ways which leave the print corners vulnerable to shipping damage. Some of the manufacturers have surface issues with their papers. The net result is that a significant percentage of boxes of papers have to be returned to the dealer - which is fine if he’s across town, and has more paper in stock, and it doesn’t have defects, and that’s three big ifs. It may even be more of a problem if it means trying to get an online paper supplier to take back damaged paper. Not only you likely have to pay for the return shipping, but you run the risk of an argument over whether it’s the online seller’s issue or the shipper’s issue - an argument which the customer is most certainly not going to win. This is frustrating from the consumers point of view, often professional photographers selling our work, with deadlines and tight schedules. It has to be frustrating for you too.

A fix for the bashed corner problem wouldn’t be that difficult. You could try wrapping the paper in inert polythene, then wrap again in a padded closed cell foam sheet, or heavier polythene, or you could simply accept the cost of bigger boxes with real protected corners. Even a 1/4 inch on each side, 1/2 inch bigger box in both dimensions, would do the job nicely.

As for surface defects, it simply isn’t acceptable to pay big dollars for fine art papers, costing several dollars a sheet, and have to throw away two or three sheets from the outside of the stack because of scuffing, or buy 4 boxes in the hope that 2 won’t have ‘water’ marks on them.

If you can’t make papers without a percentage of defects, then I think you owe it to us to sell, say, packages of 25 sheets but include 30 in the box. It can’t be cost effective to deal with the returned boxes sent back by local dealers and hardly endears you to them (they like returns as little as you do and too many returns and they won’t be stocking your products).

We hope that the surface defect issues become a thing of the past and beg all manufacturers to better protect the paper from shipping problems of scuffing and bashed corners.

Here is a sample with the classic signs of damaged papers:

Corner from the outside

Same box from the inside

Here is an example how to do much better. This it from a new box of Epson Ultrasmooth Fine Art Paper. This is expensive paper and the packaging does it fully justice. Epson told us that most of their better papers will be packaged this way in the future.

Epson Ultrasmooth Fine Art Paper (13x19")

If any reader, manufacturer or merchant wants to share his view please drop us a note and we may publish it here.

Readers Comments

Robert Reiter (owns and operates a fine art digital printing lab, 4/11/2007)

"I echo your sentiments on paper manufacturer's lack of quality control in shipping their product. It extends to roll paper as well as sheet, and goes beyond simple packaging damage. I have had a particularly bad run of papers from a majo paper manufacturer.

Problems have included one roll obviously dropped on its end, with an inch deep ding in the edge that extended throughout at least the first third of an eighty foot roll, a roll with a pen sized hole punched in the leading edge that repeated about four times, ruining the first eight feet or so of a forty foot roll, and at least two rolls out of the last three I've opened that had a mosquito crushed into the paper! Not to mention the odd collection of simple flaws in the paper composition that result in sections of paper that must be excised from the roll and used for proofs. That's OK if I find it before starting a large print, but I have enough scrap paper in the normal course for all the proofs I need.

Lucky for me, I buy my paper from a reputable dealer and he has been wonderfully supportive and quick to fix the problems. But, come on guys, stop resting on your reputation and pay attention to the details!

Let's hope a little negative publicity will convince the manufacturers that if they are going to charge a premium for their product, they have to provide a quality that justifies the price."