As a result of reading a lot of questions asked / or complaints about, I thought it might be helpful to find out who's using what brands & types of photo paper and what brands of printers are giving good results when paired together. With many of the better types of photo paper having ICC profiles available I also thought it would be helpful to have links to where they can be found. One more thing that I'd like to see discussed is just how & why some of the non traditional papers (if they are actually considered papers) are used; such as fine art paper or fabric based materials.
Considering the huge variety of photo paper aimed at the consumer just starting on the road to printing at home this may save a lot of people from wasting money, ink & time simply because they thought photo paper is all the same. I for one know the right paper / printer combination make a gigantic difference to the print produced when all the settings are correct to match the print driver to the paper the ink's getting laid down on. This point came home just recently when I had to replace my 10+ year old HP 1000 and when I did it wasn't with another HP printer. Even though I knew that it was best to use paper made by the printer manufacturer as a starting point I tried using what I had, which was HP Premium paper (a new package basically) and what a disaster, the ink piled up on top (more or less) making for a very strange print. I've had the reverse too, where one brand of paper I tried absorbed most of the ink giving the print a look as though it was fogged.
