If you have purchased a paper sample pack (on or after the 18th of September 2019) or had a look at the different paper specifications on our website, you will have noticed a whiteness value for each paper.
In September 2019, we started to use our own paper whiteness scale for the papers and canvas that we stock. Taking into account both the brightness and – most importantly – the whiteness of the paper, we created a 1 to 10 scale of paper whiteness, 1 being the least white and 10 being the most white.
You’ll notice that we do not stock any papers with a whiteness above 9.0 and below 4.0, giving ourselves room for papers that are either whiter or less white than our current stock.
Our scale was measured from a number of factors; papers were scanned with a neutral calibration and analysed in Photoshop for colour values, each paper was compared within the range under neutral D65 lighting for a ranking order and finally, both the TAPPI (brightness) and CIE scale (whiteness) were considered before we concluded our results.
We hope our scale allows for a better analyse of our paper range when making a decision on what paper to use for your prints.