Paper Reference

Here at Royce Howland Print Studio, we have a large inventory of paper. If you have a favourite paper you’d like to use with your next project, chances are good we already have it on our shelves. But if you’re still exploring papers, the selection can seem overwhelming at times. Here, we have assembled some information that may help you zero in on one or more papers to use with your work.

Paper Characteristics

Below on this page, we will show a lot of papers in a grid with a series of characteristics about each one. Here are the basic characteristics that we can use to describe each paper:

• Is its surface finish glossy or matte? Or perhaps semi-gloss or semi-matte?
• Is its surface smooth or textured? If smooth, is it very smooth or just fairly smooth? If textured, is it lightly textured or heavily textured?
• Is it a neutral white or a warm white? (Often measured as a % whiteness value.)
• Does it contain fluorescing optical brightening agents (OBA)?
• Is its fibre base made of alpha cellulose (usually wood pulp), cotton, bamboo, hemp, kozo (mulberry), or something else?
• Is it light or heavy? (Measured in gsm, grams per square metre.)
• Is it thin or thick? (Measured in mm, millimetres.)
• Is it translucent or opaque? (Measured as a % opacity value.)

Each paper in our inventory has its own combination of these characteristics, and they all combine to create the paper’s aesthetic. Rarely will we have different papers with the same features, though in some cases we do have papers that are close to each other. More commonly, each paper has something slightly — or distinctively — unique to its composition or appearance.

There are some combinations of characteristics where we can’t get an exact match among all of the papers. Having said that, if you’re looking for something specific, always feel free to ask and we will do our best to match it as closely as possible.

Paper Reference Table

If you would like a version of the table below that you can search, sort and filter, >>click this link<< and you’ll be taken to a new browser tab with the same information in a Google Sheet. You can interact with the sheet to search the content, sort up or down by the different columns, etc.

Paper Name	Surface Finish	Surface Texture	White	Whiteness	OBA	Base Fibre	Weight	Thickness	Opacity	Vendor Page
Hahnemuhle Bamboo	Matte	Smooth	Warm white	83%	None	90% bamboo, 10% cotton	290 gsm	0.5 mm	99%	Click here
Hahnemuhle Photo Rag®	Matte	Smooth	White	92.5%	Very low	Cotton	308 gsm	0.48 mm	99%	Click here