Fine art materials are typically made up of pH-neutral cotton (rag) or (alpha) cellulose fiber. It offers artists or photographers the opportunity to create giclée prints on heavy weight medium or smooth textured papers such as the Sihl Artistic Creative Smooth. Sihl is a very well known and respected Swiss manufacturer of cotton rag papers.
Smooth and textured fine art papers
The Sihl Artistic Creative Smooth rag paper matches smooth cold press papers. Ideal candidates are artists and photographers requiring almost no texture but still the quality that only a pure cotton paper carries. Expect a great print longevity from any of these substrates; accelerated aging results points up to 200 years with HP Vivera inks.
Use care when handling before framing. Although HP Vivera inks are the most scratch resistant giclee pigments on the market, we use matte black, which renders very high Dmax but is more susceptible to scuffing. The prints can be framed with archival corners or mounted with a heat sensitive tissue. We do not recommend a temperature over 180 F.
Printing Specifications
When preparing files for fine art cotton rag prints, please use a minimum resolution of 200 PPI for Sihl paper. No higher PPI is needed. If submitting black and white images, leave your monochrome files in RGB mode. The same applies to images with some tone (i.e. sepia). As always, please do a gamut check to make sure colors are not out of range. Upon file receipt, we will review colors and detail to spot any issues before printing. Sihl papers have wide gamuts, which allows for brilliant prints with deep blacks.
Prints on Sihl paper is offered in our online gallery. If you wish to purchase for own consumption, please email or call us. We carry 17″, 24″, 44″ and 60″ roll papers.
