It was great to receive another message at the end of the year from the team at Permajet saying… As a thank you for being a loyal customer and regularly supporting us on social media, we would like you to be one of the 1st to try the new Double-sided Lustre 295 paper. 

Double-sided paper, this is not something I have used since 2014 when I was playing with printing and portfolios while I was at UNI, I genuinely have no idea what I would use double-sided for, but I figured I will give it a go and think how I could incorporate it into my work

This is how the PermaJet marketing team describe the paper.

”Double-sided Lustre has an instant-dry, microporous coasting, and a bright white base with a beautiful lustre finish. Its the perfect paper for punchy, vibrant photographic books and portfolios”

PermaJet said they would send over a few sheets to have a play around with and for me to give them some honest feedback, then stick a few posts up on social media about it in return.  I have not been paid to write this nor been offered anything other than 5 sheets of A3 paper and 1 sheet of A4 paper to test with, nor have they promised me any other goods in return, these are just my honest feelings on a paper that has been produced by a company that’s products I believe in and spend my own money on to produce work to give to my clients.

Ever since finishing 5 years of studying photography at University in 2018 I have printed whenever I can, I just love the process of seeing the paper as it comes out, then being able to hold a print up to some natural light and see details that you will never be able to get on the monitor it’s like being a kid and watching something magical happening right before you, yes you know what the results should look like as you have set profiles on the screen, but there is just something, something really nice, a bit like a surprise when you start to see that print being pushed out of the printer and it has your image on it. 

The Paper test

When you open the box, you will instantly recognise that photo papers smell and the glossy/sheen look of the Lustre type paper, so I  instantly felt at home with using this, this particular finish is what 90% of my client’s prints are completed on, so image selection for the job was fairly easy as I know what works and what won’t work

For printing my own landscape work, I use my trusty Canon Pro 10s and print using Photoshop. For testing this paper I used the Photo Lustre PPPL profile and as I was curious to see what happened as the paper felt so similar to this stock, the results were as I expected, they were just spot on. 

On my 1st image taken at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast the colour and details are 100% exactly where I would have expected it to be after having used the Permajet Oyster and Photo lustre, the 2 paper types this is closest too. I have printed this shot more times than I can remember and I can see that the result is consistent across the whole range of paper in regards to a mix of the golden sunrise light mixing with limited blue hour light, you can look as close as you like to each image and you can see so much more details than you would normally on the screen, this is one of the nicest things when testing out a new paper. The shadows are really well preserved in the rocks, you can still see the details preserved in the dark rocks. The print as mentioned above is instant drying and ready to go for the 2nd side straight away, so that is what I did to make this test fair as they said it is instant drying.

The 2nd landscape image for on the back of the paper was one I believe I have not printed before, it was taken at Caister on Sea in Norfolk. I was excited to see how nice the result was in comparison to the image on the screen. By choosing an image not printed before I was able to avoid comparing it to many other papers, so I could get some 1st time seeing it in print. I genuinely thought this image was going to be challenging for the printer and paper to handle due to the mixture of tones throughout it. As far as landscape images go it is a real mixed bag, pin-sharp details on the structure, whites in the water, blue hour light and plenty of golden sunlight. Where I thought it may have tripped up the print a little was on the end of the sea defence and the basket on top of the upright post set against the sky, as it contains a mixture of reds, blacks and plenty of details due to the erosion from the sea. Upon very close inspection this is absolutely perfect and in fact, looks far nicer than I had seen it on the screen. Overall this is another perfect print that I am very happy with the outcome of it. I did notice that their paper has good durability, you are not going to damage the print to easily while handling it, or when it is running through the printer, so I was sure to check for any marks using my Wescott Icelight and could not see anything sticking out to me. I have come back to look at these images over a few days since printing them, both under a lamp and in daylight and their quality is all the way up at the top with this paper, there is nothing bad to be said about it at all, I just love it.

Thoughts on the papers and its best uses

When the Double-sided paper was 1st mentioned I am not even going to pretend I was not at a bit of a loss as to where I would use this, but after giving it some thought, I know I will be making smaller compact portfolio books to showcase my work for when attending crafty fairs, taking my portfolio to galleries and premises that would like to display and sell my work and even to be able to give books to people who may want to take images home to see how different images will work in a certain room.

The biggest benefit of this is that everything is going to be condensed, so there will no longer be a need to be carrying boxes of prints into fairs and running the risk of them getting damaged, looking cluttered and also the phenomenal cost of printing to try and cover every print sale I forecast from previous shows, now I can also start looking for other previous work to print and place these in photo style albums for people to look through.

All in though, my final thoughts on this new paper stock are that it is as always with the PermaJet papers… Pro lab quality from the 1st to the last sheet in the box.

You can find all their paper stocks here on the website if you are interested in them, I don’t have any discount or affiliates codes for you. So please do check out their social channels to see what deals they have going.