Customer Reviews

ILFORD Galerie Professional Inkjet 8.5X11-100 Sheet - Smooth Gloss

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I use this paper with my Canon i850 printer and Canon's free Easy-PhotoPrint software to print out vibrantly-colored, glossy photos of all my vacations. The key feature is that the paper dries instantly, even the black areas, making them smear-free & easy to store in clear sheet protectors. Just choose "Photo Paper Pro" as your paper when using the Easy-PhotoPrint software & let the printer do the rest. I could never store pictures I printed out on Kodak papers because they never totally dried.

I use a S9000 - an awesome Printer by the way- and have tried these Papers:
Canon Photo Pro
Canon Matte
Ilford Smooth Gloss
Ilford Printasia Premium Photo Glossy
CompUSA Photo Paper

The Canon Photo Paper seems to be the best but also the most expensive. I would say almost equally good the Ilford Smooth Gloss. It comes in large supplies of sheets per packet (100/250) at a great price of under a half buck per sheet. The Ilford Printasia is a cheaper peace of paper and you happen to see the difference when you have the results right next to each other. It appears somewhat lither in color with slightly less contrast compared to the Smooth Gloss. It is also somewhat thinner than the other afore mentioned papers. Still a pretty competitive product regarding the price.
The Canon Matte is as the name tells you not glossy at all. I would only recommend it when you convert your picture with digital darkroom technique to a kind of painting and than print it on this pice of paper to give it a painting like appearance. Other than that I wouldn't recommend it. Now on the CompUSA product. Don't let me even comment on it. It's a shame that a company wiht a good reputation puts out paper like this regardless the price. It doesn't dry and only smears the jets. Stay away!!!

Verdict
Absolute performance: Choose the Canon Pro
Good performance at an affordable Price: Ilford Smooth Gloss

I have tried all kinds and prices of photo - inkjet paper. This is by far the Best of any I have tried. The gloss is the highest and it is totally - touchable dry before it drops from the printer. Its hard to find. .... If you are into your photos - once you try this - you will buy nothing else.

I own an Epson R300. Have used Epson Premium Glossy 4X6, Kodak Premium 4X6 and Ilford Glossy 8 1/2 by 11. Epson Premium Glossy is superb. Kodak Premium is unacceptable. Ilford Glossy is superb. Being able to buy large quantity of Ilford at reasonable price means I will continue to use the Epson for 4X6 and the Ilford for 8 1/2 by 11. You can't go wrong with the Ilford. Inks are dry when printer finishes.

I'm sure most of you know that the photo papers from your printer manufactures are rather expensive in comparision to others. I currently use a Canon i9900 printer and the prints I get from Ilford are fantastic. Quality is such a subjective opinion, but to me Ilford's Galerie Smooth Gloss paper is just as good as Canon's but at a lower price.

Another good brand is Fujifilm's Premium Plus. It has sort of a textured look on the surface of the paper, which makes your pictures appear sharper when you are farther away but the texture is noticable if you get real close. It's great for pictures that are hung on the wall because it's sharp even farther away, but for viewing less than an arm's length stay with Ilford's Galarie Smooth Gloss.

There's no need to buy expensive Canon/HP/Epson paper ever again.Just make sure to read the included suggested printer settings for your manufacture.

I use a S9000 - an awesome Printer by the way- and have tried these Papers:
Canon Photo Pro
Canon Matte
Ilford Smooth Gloss
Ilford Printasia Premium Photo Glossy
CompUSA Photo Paper

The Canon Photo Paper seems to be the best but also the most expensive. I would say almost equally good the Ilford Smooth Gloss. It comes in large supplies of sheets per packet (100/250) at a great price of under a half buck per sheet. The Ilford Printasia is a cheaper peace of paper and you happen to see the difference when you have the results right next to each other. It appears somewhat lither in color with slightly less contrast compared to the Smooth Gloss. It is also somewhat thinner than the other afore mentioned papers. Still a pretty competitive product regarding the price.
The Canon Matte is as the name tells you not glossy at all. I would only recommend it when you convert your picture with digitla darkroom technique to a kind of painting and than print it on this pice of paper to give it a painting like appearance. Other than that I wouldn't recommend it. Now on the CompUSA product. Don't let me even comment on it. It's a shame that a company wiht a good reputation puts out paper like this regardless the price. It doesn't dry and only smears the jets. Stay away!!!

Verdict
Absolute performance: Choose the Canon Pro
Good performance at an affordable Price: Ilford Smooth Gloss

I have used this paper with the Epson 2200 for several years and find it to be the most cost effective paper I have found and still achieve superior results. In my view, it prints with equal quality to any Epson paper and is less expensive...

At this writing there are 9 previous reviews and 9 people gave it 5 stars. I'm only adding mine because I used it with a different printer and also gave it 5 stars. I'm using the EPSON Artisan 700. You can check my review on that - Love it. I bought this paper based on the reviews and could not be happier. I made 9 test prints using slightly different settings for speed, edge smoothing, something Epson calls "Fix Photo", etc. The only constant was that I kept it set to "Premium Photo Paper Glossy". I even used both "Best Photo" and standard "Photo". My wife and I both have excellent eyes for color and quality - she owns a quilting business and my degree is in Art/Photography and I own a video production business - We could not see any perceptable difference in any of the prints using a printer test image with photos, gray scales, color boxes, and color prism bars. The quality was superb. The prints came out of the printer apparently smudge proof (I did not try anything damp or wet on it). Absolutely beautiful. It would take something pretty spectacular to get me to buy anything different than this for my new printer.

OMG, this is great paper. Just for info, it is not printable on the reverse side (Who would use this quality paper and then print on the reverse, anyhow? I know). In any case, if you do want to print on the reverse of decent paper, use the Ilford Classic series instead, which are printable on the reverse, (at least right now they are). "Classic Gloss Paper" and "Classic Pearl Paper" are two that I have successfully used.

I like to use Amazon's review, so in a way I feel obliged to tell people truth. This paper is better than Canon Paper Pro (I use canon IP 4200 printer), you know the best canon has to offer. And you know why it is best, because it produces the same great results you can get on canon paper but it costs much less. I am telling you I found my new paper. Moreover this paper shows less "banging"- the lines you can notice if you look at photographs through magnifying grass. One more thing, Ilford paper is as shiny as canon's but, it (ilford paper) has, what I call dry shine in comparison to canon which has wet shine. The difference? When you grab canon Paper Pro photograph it may later show your great fingerprint, it won't show on Ilford paper. So to all photographers-if you used canon paper try to use Ilford for a while and see the difference. You may not notice one.