To be able to produce professional quality digital prints at home or in small offices, a good quality photo paper is a must. True, one can print digital images into an ordinary bond paper or an everyday photo paper (like that offered by HP), but this is tantamount to wasting money and resources.
If one is to expend all those toners and inks to print a professional-quality bunch of digital photographs, using premium glossy photo paper could prove to be the more practical choice in the end. Premium glossy photo paper is the professionally-recommended appropriate material for images that need high quality rendition – vivid colors, detailed textures and smooth, unpixelized images. The level of gloss in a photo paper is a major factor in grading the overall quality of a digital print.
Glossy is the professional standard for high quality digital photograph printing, because it is neither too soft nor too hard in terms of output texture. It is also referred to as the “finish” in professional photography. It is used in commercial photo labs and for personal home printing projects like wedding, anniversary or family reunion photos for distribution and storage.
Premium glossy photo paper come in a number of glossy levels – the major ones being the soft gloss, standard gloss, super gloss (silk) and matte which is a completely opposite print texture of super gloss, and ideal for black and white or muted, earth colored images.
Premium glossy photo paper can be expensive though, especially if used for practice printing or regular color print jobs. However, when used on special pictures, it will prove to be a good investment.